


The Unfinished Letters

by SilentAuror



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Depression, Infidelity, M/M, POV: Sherlock, POV: third person, Romance, post-series 3, series 3 fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:47:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6541750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentAuror/pseuds/SilentAuror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fire at Baker Street leads John to read something he was never intended to see: a notebook of half-written, unfinished letters Sherlock wrote during his time away...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unfinished Letters

**The Unfinished Letters**

 

At least the fire didn’t actually damage all that much in the end. 

The curtains will need replacing, certainly, and the wall repainted to cover the scorch marks, but most of the papers stacked on the floor nearby had been more or less worthless. They’ve emptied the closet, packed up his clothes to be sent to the dry cleaners; even the costumes and disguises have been boxed up and carted downstairs. 

Mary only stayed for the first thirty minutes or so, remarking on things in that drawling way of hers and running commentary on his various possessions but not actually helping in any way. Eventually John suggested she take herself to the kitchen and make a cup of tea, and Mrs Hudson intervened still further, offering her own kitchen and suggesting Mary might like to go back to sleep on the sofa (since it’s the middle of the night and all) and generally fussing at her until Mary took the point and went, leaving the three of them to box up Sherlock’s things. 

Or two of them, rather; Sherlock is aware that he’s been of little help, staring vacantly into the place where the fire started, the scent of the smoke still acrid in his nostrils. A fire at Baker Street. The idea has shaken him to the foundation of his being. He nearly destroyed it of his own carelessness, a cigarette not quite extinguished all the way. He’d been smoking it near the window, not wanting an earful from Mrs Hudson about the smoke smell getting into the carpet and curtains and wallpaper and staining it all. She didn’t even bother scolding him much, though; she’d been more concerned with whether or not he was all right. Which he is, more or less. Just dazed by it all. He woke to the acrid smell of smoke burning in his nose and the sight of the curtains on fire. He’d scrambled out of bed cursing and trying to smother the flames with the curtains themselves, abandoning it in favour of going for the water pitcher in the fridge and running back and forth to the bathroom, refilling it from the tub. He’d got the fire out on his own, Mrs Hudson appearing with exclamations from the doorway of the bedroom as he was finishing, but then two fire trucks called by a neighbour pulled up, the crew charging up the stairs and dousing his bedroom in water before taking Mrs Hudson’s word that the situation was under control. 

He noticed only later that he burnt himself. It didn’t matter. Mrs Hudson must have called John, because the next thing he knew John was there, the sound of his voice making Sherlock’s heart lift from its haze of smoke despite himself, only to fall again at the sound of Mary’s chiming in with John’s, overlapping and interrupting. Then they were all there with him in the bedroom, looking at the mess and asking dozens of questions. Finally Mrs Hudson got Mary out of the way and started boxing things up to clean or dry or dispose of and here they are, the three of them. 

Sherlock is sitting on the far side of the bed in a dry patch, his gaze unfocused. John is suddenly there in front of him, bent over, trying to catch his eye. “Hey,” he says, his voice a little rough. “Let me see your hands.” 

Sherlock turns them palm up in wordless obedience and John makes a disapproving sound. 

“You’ve burnt yourself,” he says. “Tried to put the fire out with your bare hands, did you?” 

Sherlock feels his shoulders move in what might be a shrug. “I had to do something.” The words feel numb in his mouth, like stones. Insensate. Meaningless. 

John tsks. “Stay here,” he says, and is gone again, rummaging in the bathroom cupboards. He comes back a moment later and takes Sherlock’s limp hands and bandages them. “Change these every twenty-four hours and try not to get them too wet,” he orders. “Wear rubber gloves in the shower if need be.” He fixes his gaze sternly on Sherlock’ forehead, willing him to look up. “Sherlock. Are you listening to me?” 

Sherlock makes himself nod and drags his eyes up to meet John’s. “Yes.” 

John lets out a gusty sigh and sits down on the bed beside him. “Christ, Sherlock. You could have burnt down the entire house. And what were you doing smoking, anyway? Thought you quit.” 

He had, really. Mostly. “It was just the one,” Sherlock says, the words mumbled and sounding unbelievable even to his own ears. “It won’t happen again.” 

“That’s not – ” John sounds agitated. “I mean, it’s – you could have – ” He stops abruptly. “Just – be more careful,” he says firmly. “I can’t – ” 

Again he stops, and Sherlock waits to see if he will go on and say what it is that he _can’t_ , but John doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, a small silence forms between them. Sherlock’s numbness recedes and it occurs to him that they are alone in the bedroom. He does not recall when Mrs Hudson left. Instead of becoming awkward, the silence feels the opposite: comfortable, and a little too full of things unsaid. He could almost say something, but then he recalls that Mary is downstairs and the illusion shatters. No, not shatters: that’s too violent. It wasn’t solid enough to shatter. Rather, the picture fades away like smoke. Mrs Hudson comes back in, dispelling any hopes of recapturing it, that precarious place where John almost said something, almost let on that he _can’t_ something, what was it? What might he have said? _I can’t do without you._ Light-hearted: yes, that’s plausible. He can imagine John saying those words. _I can’t live without you._ Hmm. Probably not. That doesn’t fit with _I have trouble with this sort of thing_. No. _I can’t be held responsible for your sheer stupidity, Sherlock. If you burn down this entire house with yourself and Mrs Hudson in it, that’s on you. And all for a bloody cigarette!_ Yes, that’s much more likely. Sherlock feels his shoulders slump forward a little, and John chooses that precise moment to get up and move away from him. 

“Let me help you with that,” he’s saying to Mrs Hudson, who is on her knees in front of the closet, putting things into another box. 

“It’s not all wet,” Mrs Hudson says. “Most of it is all right, actually. It just wants a good sorting, that’s all. Could be a fire risk, having all of those papers around, Sherlock.” 

They’re both looking at him. “Sorry,” Sherlock says automatically, hardly hearing them. 

He senses rather than sees John exchange a look with Mrs Hudson. “Look,” John says carefully. “I can see you’re not quite up to dealing with all this, and besides, it’s the middle of the night. Tell you what: why don’t I take this lot home, go through it for you and organise it, then bring it back and see what you want to keep and what we can throw away. All right?” 

Sherlock nods automatically. “Fine,” he says through lips that barely move. “Good. Thank you.” 

Another look passes between them. “I’ll go down and check on Mary,” Mrs Hudson says, going out with a small box of books in her arms. 

John stays behind. “You should go back to sleep,” he says. “I know your bedding’s all wet, but Mrs Hudson says she’ll look after it in the morning. You could sleep upstairs, in my old bed for what’s left of the night.”

“No.” The word says itself before he can stop it, the edges sharp. “I’ll sleep on the sofa.” 

John hesitates. “Or – if you like, you can, er, come back with us. Stay over.” 

The suggestion falls flat immediately and Sherlock specifically avoids making eye contact. “I’ll sleep on the sofa,” he repeats, his voice quieter. 

John does not push it, does not offer a second time. “All right,” he says, sounding both slightly dubious and – is he just imagining it? Probably – slightly hurt? Sherlock isn’t sure and has no method of becoming more sure, which bothers him. “I’ll go and see if there’s a dry blanket somewhere,” John says, the stiffness in his voice only just perceptible. He leaves the room and Sherlock eventually gets up and follows him out to the sitting room, abandoning the wreckage of his bedroom. 

John is shaking out a blanket over the sofa and Mrs Hudson comes in with a pillow in each hand (she’s remembered that he prefers two, bless her), and together they prepare the sofa for him. Sherlock finds himself watching them in perplexity, unable to grasp at the moment why they are doing this. He is perfectly capable doing this himself. They finish it and there’s a moment where they’re all standing about looking at one another and Sherlock wonders if he’s meant to put himself to bed on the sofa with them still hovering. He feels immensely awkward. “Thank you,” he says, for want of anything better to say, but this seems to be right. He moves past them and takes off his dressing gown, laying it on the desk chair, and that seems to bestir them. 

John goes to the doorway of the flat and says something in a low voice to Mrs Hudson. “… had a bit of a shock,” Sherlock catches, and Mrs Hudson reassures him, saying something about looking after him. John thanks her and picks up the box of Sherlock’s things and goes downstairs, no doubt collecting his pregnant wife on the way. Sherlock’s chest gives a throb of pain not unlike a remnant of the pain from the shot and he crawls under the blanket and draws his knees up, his back to the rest of the sitting room. 

Mrs Hudson comes over after closing the door that leads downstairs. Her warm hand settles onto his shoulder for a long moment. “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything, dear,” she says. “Don’t you worry about all this. We’re all right, and we’ll get it all sorted, with your things. You just get some sleep.” 

“All right,” Sherlock says to the back of the sofa. 

Her hand lingers a moment longer. “Good night, dear.” 

She goes, and Sherlock closes his eyes tightly and wills sleep to come and wash this nightmare away. 

*** 

When he wakes, the sun has been up for hours. Sherlock stretches and yawns and turns onto his back, his elbows hooked over the blanket, fingers plucking idly at the edge of it. The fire. He set his bedroom on fire. It’s all right, though. Just a mess now. He didn’t actually burn down the house with himself and Mrs Hudson inside it, like John said last night. It occurs to him that it’s rather something that John came over at half-past three in the morning, that Mary not only let him but came along, too. Possibly she didn’t want John there unsupervised or something. (No. He has nothing to base this thought upon, just a suspicion.) He thinks of all of the burnt and waterlogged things that were sitting on the small table next to the window, the books and newspaper clippings and all of that. Rubbish, really. Dangerous, though. 

The flat is very quiet. Mrs Hudson is likely either cleaning his things or napping, probably. Sunlight is filtering in through the lace curtains, motes of dust caught in its rays, and Sherlock remembers talking about the eloquence of dust. John and Mrs Hudson’s non-comprehension. The life before. 

As the quiet settles over him like the blanket covering his body, Sherlock allows the question hovering at the edges of his perceptions to ask itself, the question that has to do with self-sabotage and whether or not he was careless on purpose. Some part of his brain surely realised that he’d failed to extinguish the cigarette properly, had calculated the distance to the dry material of the curtains. It’s hardly rocket science, after all. Did some part of him mean to set the house on fire? Sherlock turns the question over in his mind and attempts to look at it objectively. No, he decides, after several long minutes of self-scrutiny. Well. Not with Mrs Hudson inside, at least. 

He sighs and the dust motes near his face are sent into a dancing frenzy. An intense sense of purposelessness is setting in. Has already set in, he corrects himself mentally. There is nothing left to do. Just bland, boring, unimaginative, tedious local crime. Moriarty is gone, resurrected briefly by a scrap of old video footage and a petty would-be imitator, caught and arrested the same day. Such a letdown after the spike of adrenaline that it had afforded. At least it got him out of the suicide mission in Serbia. There’s that much to be said for it. But Moriarty’s very existence has been his driving force for years. Discovering his existence within twenty-four hours of having met John. Tracking him from crime to crime, until the day of their confrontation on the roof of Bart’s Hospital which resulted in two deaths: one genuine and one perceived. Pursuing his agents and employees and associates across Europe and Asia for two and a half long years, alone and unaided and lonely (lonely? The adjective surprises him, slotting itself into his inner narrative that way) and sustained only by the dual thoughts of stopping Moriarty once and for all, and then returning to London. To John, his inner monologue corrects him again, annoyingly. As if he is not yet aware of this. It was all for the sake of coming back to John. 

Only John, in many senses, wasn’t here any more. Oh, he was here; he just wasn’t available in the same way that he had been. The door leading back to their old life together was closed. John was gone, claimed by someone else. Had claimed someone else. Keeping him meant accepting this. Accepting Mary. And so he had. He’d ignored his initial reading of her falseness for John’s sake, and planned their wedding painstakingly. And they had worked. There had been cases. But it wasn’t the same and was never going to be. He’d nearly accepted that by the time the wedding came. Only then Mary had shot him and John _had_ come home at last, if only temporarily. He’d known it couldn’t last, that John would go back. There’s a child, scheduled to make its arrival in a week or so. John had to go back. He would never have left a child behind, left Mary to care for their daughter all alone, no matter what he – but this is conjecture. Pure conjecture. John has never said anything to suggest reluctance at going back, a feeling of being torn over having had to leave again. Nothing of the sort. He loves Mary. He will stay with Mary. This is how things are. 

Nevertheless, having lost his nemesis, the pressure and dread of what should have been his final mission to Serbia, and John all at once is too much. He’s lost his sense of drive, forgotten what the point of his life is. Lestrade called to offer him a murder case a few days after he was released from the mission, but he refused it, lying on the floor beside the coffee table with his eyes closed. _I’m busy_ , he’d said, though the opposite was the truth. Lestrade doesn’t know any of it apart from Moriarty. He doesn’t know about Serbia. He doesn’t know that John has gone back to Mary. That Mary shot him. That John forgave her and went back to her on Christmas Day at Sherlock’s parents’ house, of all places. (Really, John.) 

He wrote something about it. About John going back to her. Something he would never post on his blog, of course. Most things are better kept in one’s head, after all. So many people splash everything they’ve ever thought or felt online for everyone to see, which is particularly useful when it comes to solving crimes and particularly stupid in every other respect. He understands the need for an outlet, but it need not be a public one. There’s a notebook he jots things into now and then. A thought or a bit of information to do with a case. Unfinished letters never intended for sending. He wrote a lot of those while he was away, mostly to John. Other things, too. Scraps of thought, attempts to put things into words that he never could have got verbalised otherwise. Things never thought or felt or expressed before. He remembers some of the entries. There was an actual letter he wrote to John, just for the relief of writing it down even if he could never have sent it, not without risking John’s life. 

_… writing to you to explain exactly why you haven’t heard from me_  
_before now. Your life is at risk, John. I would have told you if I could,_  
_but it would have put you in danger. When I know for certain, I’ll come_  
_home. I’m writing this from the balcony of a monastery in Spain. There_  
_are sheep on the hills and you can smell the sea in the air. I think you_  
_would like it here. Perhaps one day when this is all resolved, we could_  
_come here together…_

Or another, written months after that: 

_… I’m writing this from the roof of a tiny hotel in Gaza. There are date_  
_palms blowing in the wind and I wish you were here. I miss you more_  
_than I ever believed I would. I always want you here with me…_

He never would have sent them, of course. It was only meant to exorcise it out of himself, express it just the once and never allow the words past his lips otherwise. It wasn’t only when he was away that he wrote them. There are other notes in there from both before and since he was away. There was a more recent one, closer to the wedding that he recalls. 

_Do you really want this? Is it really as good, living with her? Do you_  
_honestly feel fulfilled by this, John? How are you not bored to death?_

Sherlock swings his long legs down from the sofa and gets up, going to the kettle to plug it in. He hasn’t thought about those old scraps of writing in a long time. Most of them can’t even be properly called ‘letters’; they’re half-written journal entries or blog posts or scribblings of half-formed thoughts, completely lacking in any sort of organised form. Some of them started with _John_ ; some just launched in mid-thought. _I’m in Libya now. Not sure if this town even has a name._ Or _You wouldn’t like what I had to do today. Or maybe if you’d been there, you’d have done it yourself. Yes: I think you would have. It was necessary. You wouldn’t have been bothered by these niggling doubts after the fact. Not if it needed to be done. He was just a kid, though. Couldn’t have been older than twenty-two, maybe twenty-three. Terrorists are grown much younger than that these days, though. Still: I wish you’d been the one to pull the trigger. You’re always much more able to see things in black and white like that._

He is still thinking about this one as the kettle boils, ignoring the hunger pangs stirring in his empty stomach. Most of the little notebook was notes to himself about cases, both before his time away and since, gibberish that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else. _Front left pocket: stain. Blackberry?_ Or _Check call log, pizza._ Or _Birth cert., Middlesex, church?_ Or one that didn’t even make sense to him when he found it later, which he eventually recognised as geographical coordinates to a point in the middle of a field in Cornwall. The others, though… He’d written to Mrs Hudson, too. Or started; he’d never finished that particular unsent letter, either. He’d imagined Mrs Hudson going to the funeral with John. He’d seen them there together and known she’d gone. He’d imagined her some weeks later, cleaning away his belongings. He’d wondered if she would rent the flat out again. Whether or not John had stayed. He’d written about that, too. Not directly to John so much as about him. _I wonder if John will stay at Baker Street. I hope so. Don’t know how long I’ll be gone but I’d like to come back to the same home I left behind, whenever that is. Suspect he’ll move out, though._ As John had. 

The day drifts by. Sherlock avoids the bedroom and the things Mrs Hudson left for him to sort through. He makes toast and eats it, and later, two eggs. He wanders from one part of the flat to another. Sometime during the evening, he takes a bath and stares up at the ceiling tiles and remembers the long baths John used to take in here. Tries to estimate where John’s shorter legs would fall. Imagines him washing himself, though that’s always a particularly dangerous thought – a pointlessly dangerous thought at that. Instead, Sherlock lets his mind drift into melancholy and thinks of John leaving on Christmas Day. Of the weight of Magnussen’s body falling to the terrace. Of the glaring lights of the helicopters, and the shock and anguish on John’s face. Well, he’d had to do it: if he’d allowed Magnussen to go on flicking John that way, assaulting the very foundations of his dignity, John would have eventually lost his temper and done it himself. He’d been teetering on the edge of control already, and if there is one thing he never would have allowed John to do, that was it: to throw away his life and freedom on a human sweat stain like Magnussen. So he’d done it himself, and forced them to let John out of it all. 

Sherlock moves his legs restlessly in the water and thinks of the partial letter he wrote from the holding cell they’d placed him in on Christmas night, after Magnussen. 

_I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Know that I did this for_  
_you, not her. You went back to her. I knew you would, but it still_  
_feels every inch a betrayal. She shot me, yet you went back to her._  
_I saved her for you, though. I want you to be happy. I think they’re_  
_going to send me away. My brother is ‘negotiating’ on my behalf, or_  
_so he claims. I don’t want to leave you again but I’ve already lost you,_  
_anyway…_

There was one more after that, written from the plane. A list of narcotics scribbled onto a page and torn out in preparation to hand to Mycroft, though the list was exaggerated grossly. He’d barely even been high, honestly. And on the opposite page, only five words. The last words. 

_I love you. Goodbye, John._

He’d never actually said that before, not in any of the unfinished notes. Suddenly Sherlock wants to read them again. Not just that last note, but all of them. Read through the soppy, sentimental letters, foolish as they are. Relive his exile, the much-reduced thrill of the solo chase. Where has he put it? The notebook. What did he do with it after prison? He pulls himself from the bath and dries off, wondering. He had it with him in the holding cell, so – coat? He hangs up the towel and pulls on his camel dressing gown and goes to see. It’s not in his coat pockets, any of them. He checks a pile of books on the table next to his chair and it’s not there, either. He didn’t normally leave it lying about – too much risk of John finding it, picking it up, _What’s this, then?_ , thumbing through it. 

He checks the kitchen, looking through the stack of newspapers that’s built up since his return from the holding cell. No luck. _Luck_ , Sherlock scoffs inwardly. _No. Focus: deduce._ Bedroom, then. He wanders down the corridor, frowning and wondering where he might have left it. He reaches the doorway and the wake of the fire’s chaos greets his eyes. He stops short. Was the notebook destroyed, then? Where was it? On the table by the window? In the drawer beside his bed? It might have been safe there, though maybe it would be for the best if it’s been destroyed. Though he’d have liked to have read those scraps of letters again. Sherlock goes to the drawer and opens it, but there is no small notebook inside. Suddenly his eyes fall upon the closet and he remembers: the notebook _was_ in the pocket of his coat, but he’d taken everything out upon returning to the flat after catching the Moriarty copycat. Feeling flat about everything, the aftermath letdown of a dull case, what should have been relief over having escaped the mission leaving him only deflated and tired. He’d pulled out the notebook, re-read the last thing he’d written in it, then pitched it into the closet in disgust with himself. 

Where John then picked it up and put it in a box and took home with him.

Horror crashes over Sherlock’s entire being as he realises. Both hands fly up to his face as though they can contain it somehow, keep the panic from spilling out. John has the notebook. John has seen the notebook. No. This cannot be happening. Sherlock transfers his hands from his face to his hair. “Fuck,” he says aloud. He doesn’t engage in profanity often; that’s more John’s department than his, but – “ _Fuck!_ ” he says again, with violence. His brain is unresponsive, his mind a horrified blank unable to respond, provide some sort of rational solution. Will John have read the notebook? Will he have even started sorting through the box? What time is it? Sherlock checks his phone. After midnight. When did that happen? (Never mind, focus.)

His thumb slides over the screen to unlock it, hovers over John’s name. Should he call? Ask John whether or not he’s read it? Sherlock stands still for a long moment, debating internally, his teeth worrying at the surface layer of skin of the inside of his lower lip. No. If he calls now, John will know that he’s panicking. If John knows he’s panicking, he will automatically come to the inescapable conclusion that the notebook is significant and thereby be curious. Even if he has not yet read the notebook, that could prompt him to do so. But what if he has read it? What if he has started but not yet reached anything incriminating? He could see the case notes and be reading for the sake of his blog. It’s entirely possible. 

Sherlock is frozen with indecision, unable to think of a single rational solution to this incomprehensible disaster. Should he wait until morning, then? And then what? Phone John then? Ask about the box in general and somehow work in a casual inquiry about the notebook? No: if he asks at all, it would merely serve to direct John’s attention toward it. Perhaps he should call and say that he’s ready to sort through the materials inside. Ask John to bring it over. Then, when they get to the notebook, he can merely say, _Oh, that? Nothing much, just some old notes. Give it here._ Yes: completely casual. That’s the only possible approach here. 

But what if John has already read it? This is the thought he cannot escape. What if it becomes horribly, inescapably clear to them both that John has read and understood every single word of it, including the last five words toward the end. Sherlock pictures this vividly: imagines waiting for John to pick up, then hearing his voice and immediately detecting the stiffness there. He winces just imagining it. What a nightmare. How could he have let this happen? The one secret he has vowed to himself to never, ever reveal, and he’s gone and let John pick up the only extant proof of it, and worse still, carry it into enemy territory. What if _Mary_ has seen it? Sherlock contemplates this in for few exquisitely uncomfortable moments, then reverts to his former thought that nothing could be worse than John knowing. Except that Mary would poke at it like an exposed wound, make it hurt all the more. Peel away the skin and pour acid on it in the jeering laughter of her voice, shrivelling what he feels for John into something small and tawdry and worthless, without value or place. 

Sherlock goes back into the sitting room and lies down face first on the carpet. This is hopeless. Yet, as time slides by in vague chunks, some faster, some slower, a spark of unquenchable hope makes itself known as he breathes in the dust of the carpet fibres. Hope, he knows, is irrational and generally leads people to make absolutely terrible decisions. This one is particularly likely to inspire ridiculous thoughts or worse, the possibility of following through on them with even more ridiculous behaviour. There is no basis whatsoever for this hope. Nothing at all, except for a certain look he’s caught glimpses of in John’s eyes. In his tears at what he said at the wedding. In the myriad ways his hands light on Sherlock’s frame in one way or another, some touches firm and directing, others as ephemeral as sunlight. There is no rational, logical reason to believe that John could ever possibly feel the same way, except for this unproven, uncertain wonder if perhaps he could. Or could have, once. He knows that John has shown a marked preference for women and has never dated a man. He is equally aware of John’s vows to Mary, and worse, to the impending reality of their child, their shared DNA in tiny, howling form. John would never turn his back on that, no matter what shades of feeling he might potentially have, in some part of himself that only exists in hypothetical planes. _If I’d never met Mary, if she weren’t pregnant… if it had happened before you jumped_ … 

But it never happened before that day on the roof of St. Bartholomew’s. He’d stood there, finally realising the source of his shadowy, half-understood feelings that had been ever-present since the day they had met, and begun emerging as ever more corporeal, quantifiable sensations. He’d finally known then, even as he said the words he needed to say to try to ensure John’s belief in his feigned death. And then he’d jumped. Spent two long years without John, and he’d tried to put some of it into words. What he’d felt. What he’d wanted. 

Sherlock turns onto his back and remembers another scrap of writing, something particularly sentimental and awful. 

_I’m watching my target from a terrace in Rome. He’s on his fifth espresso_  
_of the morning and I’m rather counting on him needing the loo soon._  
_Meanwhile, I’m somewhat distracted by a young couple sitting on the_  
_edge of the fountain. They’re embracing, and for once, instead of finding_  
_it annoying, I find myself thinking of you. I’ve never kissed anyone that_  
_way and I find myself wondering what your mouth would feel like. I can_  
_imagine it but I don’t suppose I will ever know. Some experiments need_  
_to be carried out rather than merely theorised about, though it wouldn’t be_  
_an experiment alone. Would you be as gentle as that young man is? He is_  
_holding her face in his hands, and for her the rest of the world has ceased_  
_to exist. I understand that now: that feeling. I didn’t before just now, but now_  
_I do. When someone takes up so much space in your mind, in your life, that_  
_nothing else appears to have any importance any more. I wonder if I would_  
_ever be that much to you._

He thinks of John reading that particular paragraph and puts his forearms over his eyes. How humiliating. He never should have written it down. He should have thought it only, felt it, mused about it to himself, but never, ever, _ever_ written it down! And yet – the spark of hope persists. What if John is somehow moved by it? Intrigued? What if some line manages to stir some dormant, half-forgotten possibility of feeling within him? What then? 

He remembers Mary, and John leaving on Christmas Day. He thinks of John’s wording, _we’re pretty sure it’s a girl_ , the _we_ , the clear delineation of his team loyalties. Stating it for the record that he and Mary are a unit again, the two of them together, Sherlock apart. He has no place in all that. That’s been understood from the start. No: John will not be moved by what he wrote. He may feel embarrassed for having read it. Worse, he may be moved to pity. But not to love. Never that. 

Sherlock moans and turns onto his side, curling into foetal position. It’s hopeless, and it’s terrible. He wants to die. This is worse than just living with it, living with the knowledge that John loves Mary and will never come home again, never come back to him. Maybe if he managed to provoke Mary into shooting him again. Maybe then, but the likelihood of him surviving a second shot from Mary’s hand does not seem likely. She missed the centre of his chest once; missing it a second time would be rather unrealistic. His entire being is wracked with anguish. There will be no saving this. He will lose John over this. It is inevitable. Sherlock closes his eyes and wills himself to die, but death refuses to oblige him. 

*** 

When he wakes, there is a blanket draped over him and a cup of tea sitting on the coffee table nearby. His eyes fall upon it and he sees a gentle curl of steam rising into the air. Mrs Hudson was therefore here quite recently. In fact, he realises, his brain coming back to life at last, it was likely her footsteps on the stairs that woke him. He reaches for the cup and drinks. It’s very hot and very sweet with just the right amount of milk, a smooth counterbalance to the tannic acid on his tongue, the smoke of bergamot rising into his nose. He drinks the entire cup propped up on one elbow and thinks about phoning John. When the tea is gone, he gets stiffly to his feet and wonders why he never thought, once he realised he was falling asleep, of moving to a more comfortable surface. He stretches and hears his bones and joints crack as they shift back into their proper places. He leaves the blanket on the floor and takes himself for a shower to shake off the cobwebs. And yes, to postpone the call, he admits to himself, but that’s beside the point. He showers and wonders if he should text instead. No, he decides abruptly. If John has already read the notebook or is in the middle of it, he will naturally hesitate, choosing his words. He needs to know immediately, needs to hear John’s voice. John is not a naturally talented liar. Of course not; he’s far too genuine. It’s one of the things that Sherlock privately likes the best about him. No: he will call. 

With reluctance, he makes himself leave the safe harbour of the shower and goes to get dressed. A suit, for armour. Yes. He dresses himself and rubs product through his damp hair and shaves. If this is to be the last day of his friendship with John, he will at least face it with dignity on his side. Finally there is nothing left to do but make the call, so Sherlock goes into the sitting room, closes the door of the flat, and picks up his phone. He makes himself breathe deeply. There may be no cause for panic, he reminds himself, his finger hovering over John’s name on his screen. John may not have read it. He may not have even looked at the box yet. (Just get it over with.) He presses, and John’s phone begins to ring. 

It takes him four rings to answer. Sherlock feels his blood pressure rising. Finally John picks up.

“Hello,” he says, and there is something guarded in his voice. 

Sherlock’s heart sinks. (He doesn’t know, though. Not yet.) “John,” he says, willing himself to sound normal. It comes out higher than it should, the insecurity bleeding through. He squeezes his eyes shut and silently curses himself. He clears his throat. “Er – how are you?” 

Disaster. He never engages in pointless smalltalk and John knows it. Knows _him_. “I’m fine,” he says, that wariness still there in his voice. “How’s the flat?” 

“Still standing,” Sherlock says, attempting to breathe. “Er – about that – I wondered if – that is, I’m – ready to go through that, er, that box you took with you. Would – you be able to bring it by sometime – soon?” Gah! He sounds more nervous and awkward than the guiltiest of criminals trapped in a lie. This is a nightmare. He crosses the arm not holding his phone across his midsection and paces back and forth across the sitting room, waiting for John’s answer, his breath stuck in his lungs. 

The pause seems to go on forever. Sherlock thinks of his voice travelling up to a satellite hovering in the atmosphere before reaching John’s ear on the other side of the city and feels every millimetre of the space dividing them. “Er, yeah, all right,” John says, sounding as awkward as Sherlock does. “I can… bring it by this afternoon, if you like.” 

“You’re not – working?” Sherlock tries. Not that he wants to put it off any longer. Is he imagining John’s awkwardness? He thought he would be able to tell, but he finds himself so agonised by his own discomfort that he cannot get a proper reading of John’s. 

“It’s Saturday,” John tells him patiently. Is there a hint of smile in his tone? He used to get gently amused and exasperated all at once with Sherlock’s preponderance for losing track of the time and date. “I’ll come over after lunch.” 

What time would that be? Sherlock looks around for a clock other than the one on his phone. It’s already after noon. “Soon, then?” he asks, hating how stilted it still sounds. 

“We’re just about to eat,” John confirms. “I’ll come over after that.” 

“All right.” Sherlock hangs up and puts the phone down on the coffee table. He walks over to the window and leans his forehead against the cool glass. The waiting will be agony. Why would John sound so stiff if he hadn’t read it? Suddenly Sherlock remembers how he reacted to John’s suggestion that he sleep upstairs in his old bed and winces. If John _has_ read the notebook, he will know exactly why Sherlock balked at that now. He’ll know all of it: how Sherlock feels about him, about Mary, about John’s decision to return to her. All of it. He won’t have a single thing to hide behind. No plausible deniability. Not a bit of it: he will be laid bare before John. The only question will be whether John even thinks their friendship is salvageable, or if he’ll deem things too awkward to bother going on with. 

If only he could take it back. Unwrite those words. Unspeak those feelings. It’s all right there for John to see, uncompromisingly honest. _I love you._ There is no escaping that. No room for misinterpretation. John will be horrified and probably terribly uncomfortable. 

Sherlock paces and fidgets and stalks about the flat until John finally comes, his nerves practically visible through his skin. He hears the door, then the progress of John’s footsteps up the stairs, unhindered by the weight of the box in his arms. Sherlock opened the door after ending the call and now he waits until John has crossed the threshold before turning around. He does it with mechanical precision, though he can feel the fear in his eyes, plain to see. 

Their eyes meet across the space, and Sherlock knows instantly then that John has read the notebook. 

John doesn’t break the eye contact for a long time, and in the silence filling it, Sherlock feels the weight of every single thing he wrote hanging between them. “Hi,” John says at last, his voice quiet and a bit heavy. 

Sherlock’s throat is closing. He swallows. “Hi.” The word is dryer than dust, a hollow shell. 

John takes four steps and sets the box down on the coffee table. Sherlock’s eyes go to it, and sure enough, the notebook is there at the very top. His gaze shifts to John and he sees that John is looking at it, too, his lips parted slightly, obviously trying to decide what to say about it. The loaded silence lengthens again, or so it seems to Sherlock. Finally John takes a breath and says, “Sherlock – ”

Sherlock talks over him. “You’ve read it, then.” His voice is low, but very certain. 

John’s lips compress in what might be self-reproach. “Yeah.” The admission is soft but no less certain. “I’m – sorry, Sherlock, I didn’t – I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.” 

His eyes glance up into Sherlock’s, only six feet away from him. Even so, it’s too close. John can see directly into his soul from this distance, not that he needs to. There is nothing which he does not now know. Sherlock finds that he cannot breathe. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says, his mouth frozen, his lips hardly moving. “Just – go.” It’s pointless to say anything else about it. He does not want John’s pity. 

John winces visibly. He swallows and drops his gaze and nods as though to himself. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’ll just – ” He gestures toward the box and turns away. He walks back toward the doorway, then stops, one hand going to his hip, the other to his forehead. His breath releases in a deep gust, and instead of leaving, he stays where he is for a long moment. 

The silence is agonising. Sherlock feels as though he has been stripped of his clothing and very skin, that his naked heart is sitting in the box on the coffee table, that John has examined it at length and in detail. He waits. John obviously has something to say about it. Is he trying to choose the right words to terminate their friendship? Sherlock waits, cringing internally and feeling hurt and a certain indignation at the injustice of it all radiating outward from him in spikes. The wait goes on interminably. 

Finally John speaks, his back still to him, “Why didn’t you ever tell me, Sher – ” His voice breaks off into a whisper, the way it does whenever he talks about something he finds difficult. 

“How could I?” Sherlock returns, his lips still feeling numb. His words sound harsh in the charged air between them. “How could I have possibly told you?” 

John makes no answer to this. His head drops forward a little. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to forget about it. Ever.” 

Sherlock swallows. His throat feels like broken glass. “I realise that.” He hesitates, his throat aching. “I never meant for you to know.” 

John inhales sharply at this, his shoulders rising, but he stops and doesn’t say whatever it was he was going to say. After a long moment of some sort of inner struggle to which Sherlock is not privy, he turns around and says, with difficulty, “Look. You’re my best friend. I know this makes things awkward as arse but – I’m not going to just – ” He stops and restarts. “Look – things will be all right. Eventually. All right? I’m just saying, it’s probably going to take some time. And,” he adds, his voice softening, “I – imagine that you might… want a bit of space. I didn’t mean to read it. I should have stopped once I realised, but I – I’m sorry, Sherlock. Really truly sorry.” 

This is pity. Sherlock shakes his head, refuting it and refusing to look John in the face. “Stop,” he says, and the word hurts. “Just – don’t.” 

John hesitates, still struggling, then says, “Okay.” Just that. Nothing more. After another interminable pause he says, “Then I think I should maybe go. If you, er, want me for anything – need anything, or if there’s a case, or – you know where to find me.”

“Yes.” The word is flat and wooden. There is one more thing he must know. He turns his face up toward the skull painting rather than at John. “Does Mary know?” 

“No,” John says at once. “And I wouldn’t tell her that. I hope you know that I wouldn’t do that, Sherlock.” He waits long enough to be diplomatic then says, awkwardly, “Well – all right, then.”

Sherlock keeps his eyes averted as John’s steps recede down the stairs again. When the door shuts below, he closes his eyes. His legs are trembling, so he somehow gets himself over to his chair and collapses into it, his limbs all pulled into himself. He isn’t cold but his teeth are chattering. That was awful. That was one of the worst things he has ever experienced. 

And worst, he thinks dismally, there is no end to this in sight. This is just how things are always going to be from now on. 

*** 

John does not attempt to contact him for days. Lestrade does not phone to offer him a case. Mycroft does not bother him. Mrs Hudson seems to detect an aura of gloom emanating from the flat and avoids him, too. Sherlock is listless and intensely depressed. He does the bare minimum in terms of bathing and feeding himself, switching to new pyjamas every other day or so. He sleeps a lot. He thinks of many creative ways to cause himself harm, mostly minor. Anything to attract John’s attention, make him come over and fuss at him, heal him, touch him. The thought of seeing John is agonising, yet not seeing him is equally bad. No, worse. No. He can’t decide. Neither option is good. This is ghastly, he thinks, staring into the tea cupboard blankly and realising that he’s been at it for at least ten minutes now. He closes the cupboard and abandons the thought of tea. How long has it been now? Six days? John said that they would go on being friends. He didn’t say it all the way, but that was definitely what he’d been trying to say. But then, he also said that he would need time. Or that it would need time. For them to go on being friends. He didn’t say that he was angry, though. He didn’t seem angry. Just awkward. Uncomfortable. He said he would never be able to forget it, but didn’t make it sound as though he considered that the death blow to their friendship. 

Sherlock wanders back into the sitting room and curls himself into the corner of the sofa. His phone pings in the pocket of his dressing gown, startling him. It’s been days and days since anyone phoned or texted. His heart leaps into his throat. It’s John. Somehow he already knew it would be. His fingers shake as he slides the screen unlocked. 

_Hey. Listen, I know it’s bound to be a bit_  
_uncomfortable, but Mary wants you to come_  
_for dinner tonight, if you’re free. Could be_  
_our last chance to do anything normal before_  
_the baby arrives. Would you come? I’d like_  
_to see you, too. About seven?_

Sherlock stares at the screen for a long time. The question mark implies the expectation of an answer. He contemplates this, every wording choice John has made. _Mary wants you to come_. John knows precisely how he feels about Mary now – apart from his anger at John having gone back to her, there were a few choice lines about her in the notebook here and there, too. Not many, but certainly enough to convey the gist. And then the added _I’d like to see you, too_ , hiding it behind the part about Mary. Normalising it. The question at the end. The open acknowledgement of the situation. Was it really Mary’s idea, or is this John’s attempt to open communication between them again? Using Mary as a buffer, possibly? Only this could also be interpreted as a rather cruel invitation, given that John knows of his feelings for both himself and for his wife: inviting Sherlock into their shared domicile, the stark contrast of their coupledom set against his solitariness underscored pointedly. He wonders suddenly if they’re inviting anyone else. If the initiative is John’s, he can almost understand wanting a third party there, just to give them both some cover. If this is the case, however, has he forgotten how perceptive Mary can be? If she does not already know, and Sherlock has suspected for some time that she does, airing it in front of her in a confined social space such as a dinner, with plenty of time to observe any and all interactions between himself and John, all of their tiny reactions and word choices – John could very well give away the entire game. Not that this is a game, as Sherlock is only too painfully aware. 

He wrenches himself off the sofa and paces around the sitting room. The very idea of going there for dinner is dreadful. All of his acute misery with John observed by Mary’s cool, mocking gaze, amusement playing about her lips. The smug accomplishment of her belly, of their child growing within her. Physical proof of John’s allegiance to her, of his eternal and inescapable bond with and to her. No: he does not want to go to their flat for dinner. On the other hand, if he refuses, how will John receive that? Would he take it as a sign of rejection and never offer again? Or that Sherlock himself has decided to terminate their friendship? During the awful month that followed the wedding, John proved how willing he was to let things slide between them. Granted, he was on his honeymoon for three of those weeks, but he never reached out to reinitiate contact upon his return. Sherlock had been embroiled in his research into Magnussen, in planting seeds to lead him into suspecting a weakness in drugs rather than in John, but he’d been keenly aware of John’s silence. It had helped the case, at least for awhile: he’d wanted Magnussen to think they were drifting. The actual fact of it had stung. 

If he wants to see John again, prevent a permanent drift from occurring this time, perhaps he has no option but to accept the invitation. Go over there and endure it, invent some small talk to present as a front, a shield against anything real spilling from his lips. He is very good at being taciturn, but he needs to be engaged enough to put Mary off. Sherlock sighs deeply and rakes his fingers through his hair. Acceptance it is. He unlocks the screen again, thinks for a moment, then types back. 

_All right. Tell me what to bring. SH_

John responds within moments. 

_Mary says red wine, if that’s ok._

_PS: You stopped signing off your texts_  
_to me years ago. I haven’t forgotten_  
_who you are, you know._

Sherlock reads the message about eight times over, then puts his phone back in his pocket, ignoring it. A shower. Yes. And he’ll need to get dressed. He decides in that moment that he wants to look as good as he possibly can, if only to irritate Mary. Attractiveness is its own form of power, and she cannot hope to compete with him there, the fact of their differing genders notwithstanding. He’s noticed that whenever he’s looking particularly good or dressed especially well, the level of her barbs and stinging jokes rises noticeably. Sherlock goes into the bedroom, strips off his pyjamas and goes naked into the bathroom, turning on the taps to let the water warm. It’s an old house and sometimes this can take a few minutes. Peering into the mirror, he determines that it’s been at least five days since he last shaved. Or possibly since the day of John’s visit. Yes. His stubble is a mix of auburn and chestnut, lighter than his curls, and he’s always hated it. Definitely a shave. He steps into the shower and washes himself thoroughly, using the best of all of his products: expensive, fragrant shampoo and body wash, his skin scrubbed and nearly stinging by the time he’s finished. He towels himself dry, then rubs lotion into his skin, product into his wrung-out hair. If he is going to walk into the lion’s den, he thinks as he watches himself shave, then he’s damned well going to present as polished a front as he possibly can. He applies deodorant to the fine, auburn hair beneath his arms and brushes his teeth, then goes to choose a suit. He considers several, then selects one that he knows John likes. It’s the one John specifically told him to wear for the Moriarty trial while he’d been doing his best to ‘coach’ Sherlock through it. _Wear this one,_ he’d said, pulling out one of the black ones. _You wore it for that dinner the other week. You look good in dark colours. Wear a dark shirt, too. Open collar, no tie. You hate wearing ties, anyway._ John has always looked him more when he wears black in particular, he’s noticed. Like at Buckingham Palace, though John’s eyes certainly took in his attire – or lack thereof – with vivid interest before he’d changed into the black suit and shirt the Secret Service had amusingly thought appropriate for a visit to the Palace. 

He takes the suit out and inspects it, then decides on a whim to wear the same black pin-striped shirt that he wore for the trial with it. He dresses with care, pulling finely-knit black trouser socks on before stepping into his trousers and zipping them closed over matching black underwear. The shirt is buttoned at the cuffs then down the front, the collar arranged properly. He inspects himself critically in the mirror above the dresser when it’s finished and decides that he looks the best he possibly can. Should he change into a lighter shirt? Will it look as though he’s donned mourning over John’s lack of reciprocal utterances after the notebook discovery? He debates, then decides not to change. He frequently dresses in dark colours. There is no need to overthink this. 

Sherlock makes a cup of tea and doesn’t drink it, drumming his fingers against the kitchen table until it’s time to leave. He cannot focus on anything else. Dread and anticipation are frothing in the pit of his belly in a heady mixture and he wonders if he can possibly choke down anything Mary sets before him. He sees her smug face, the _I won in the end, Sherlock_ , cat-who-got-the canary face. The closed-lip smile, just shy of a garish grin like at the wedding, undisguised glee for a moment as she became aware that her pointed remarks about Major Sholto had succeeded in inflaming his jealousy. The brilliance of her eyes, dancing with uncontained mirth at his lopsided, unreturned feelings, dragging him under in their uneven weight, watching him drown beneath it without a shred of human compassion. And people call _him_ cold. Sherlock scowls and goes to pull on his coat and scarf, bending to tie his shoelaces. Nothing for it, then. He goes down and hails a taxi, then spends the entire ride feeling his stomach clench tighter and tighter. 

He can barely breathe as he goes up the front walk, his fingers fumbling in uncustomary clumsiness at the latch on the gate. (Is Mary watching him from the window, eyes narrowed for a last moment before assuming her mask again?) Sherlock keeps his eyes steadfastly on the door, his mouth set. He brought a bottle of wine he already possessed, dusted off from the bottom shelf of the pantry where he keeps bottles that people give him or that he occasionally purchases, though those were always for immediate consumption. (With John, it goes without saying.) He presses down the button for the bell and hears it chime inside. 

John comes to open the door. His eyes are a little anxious but his mouth smiles, at least. “Sherlock,” he says, and there is definitely relief in his tone. “Come in.” 

Sherlock proffers the bottle awkwardly, like a shield. “I hope pinot noir is all right. There was a bottle in the pantry…” 

John accepts it as though thrilled to have something to do with his hands, taking it as Sherlock thrusts it at him in a clear gesture of _No, you don’t have to touch me, just take the bloody wine_. “Pinot noir’s great,” he assures Sherlock. “I’ll just, er, go and open it. Let it breathe. Come in and make yourself at home. You know where everything is. Leave your coat wherever.” 

Indeed he does know, but John being courteous and hospitable him to after their years of shared domesticity is awful. Years of John’s dirty socks left near his chair where they were peeled off after a long shift, John collecting his detritus (an apple core, a plate with an uneaten crust of toast, an abandoned cup of tea) and taking it into the kitchen, of their mixed laundry, underwear and socks clinging to one another’s with no sense of propriety whatsoever, of debating whether or not the raw chicken in the meat drawer was still edible or whether they should throw it away (or save it for an experiment) – to be met with this unrelenting hospitality feels like a wall having been slammed up in his face. Though he is simultaneously aware that John likely did not intend it to come across that way. They do not live together now. This is John’s home, John’s right to establish mastery of his own territory. Only it’s Mary’s territory, really. He does not answer. It doesn’t matter; John has already taken himself and the wine off. He hears Mary’s voice in the kitchen as he takes off his coat and hangs it on a hook that looks as though it can barely support the weight of it and takes off his shoes. John and Mary are both in the kitchen, hidden from view. He does not know what to do with himself. He straightens his suit jacket and makes himself move into the sitting room. 

There is a chair with a cushion placed at the exact spot to fit into the small of John’s back. The chair itself is bland and uninteresting, much like the rest of the flat, but the cushion marks it as John’s chair. He decides to sit there, not moving the cushion. The small of his own back lacks the slight curve of John’s and he does not require the cushion but he thinks of it pressing into John’s, relieving the pressure on his lower spine and settles himself against it. 

John comes back into the sitting room with a glass of wine. “I aerated it,” he explains. “Someone gave us this thing for that and it’s supposed to mean you don’t have to let it sit.” He holds out the glass as though there is nothing wrong between them, no words that should never have been read, no untoward revelations uncovered. 

Sherlock’s throat feels tight. This was definitely a bad idea. He accepts the wine. He should not have come. The doorbell rings again and he feels a frown come across his face. “Who – ”

John rolls his eyes. “Oh God, I’m sorry – Mary’s idea,” he mutters, then goes for the door, raising his voice for Mary. “That’ll be Molly.” 

Molly. Perfect. Splendid. Just what he needs. Molly, chipping in and stumbling without a clue into this mess, chattering mindlessly and possibly managing to see too much even so. Sherlock briefly closes his eyes and tunes out the meaningless exchange of small talk at the door. 

“Have we managed to bore you already?” 

Sherlock opens his eyes and finds Mary’s cool blue gaze on his, calculating. Judging. “Not at all,” he says stiffly. “Can I help you with something?” 

“No, we’ve got it all under control,” Mary says, shooting the _we_ at him like a poison dart. Her gaze shifts to the door. “Molly! Lovely to see you!” She goes, her presence lingering behind her like the after-cloud of her perfume. _Claire-de-la-lune_. Sherlock scowls and waves the cloud of it away from his face. It smells like the night he was shot, a ghostly memory of the pain echoing in his chest. 

There is more chatter in the front hall and then Molly is ushered in. “I didn’t know what to bring,” she says. “So I just brought some chocs I saw in a shop.” Mary reassures her and Molly comes into the sitting room. “Hello,” she says brightly to Sherlock. 

He manufactures a smile and puts it on. It feels like a grimace. “Hello, Molly.” Small talk is required at this juncture but it feels like a hurdle. He cannot be bothered to deduce anything about her. Well: perhaps that’s for the best, anyway. “Are you well?” 

The question sounds forced. That’s fair: it is. Molly gives him a slightly exasperated smile that somehow manages to be slightly fond at the same time. “Yes, thank you,” she says, and pointedly does not return the question. Which is a relief, frankly. 

Things slide into a slight blur as Mary comes in to chat at Molly. They more or less ignore him and John is in the kitchen. Sherlock wishes devoutly that he were anywhere else. He has already offered help and been refuted; therefore what else is he supposed to do? He sips the wine he brought and tastes nothing. He took a brief sommelier course once for a case and managed to develop his palate somewhat, though not to the extent of his ability to identify scents. Whatever small amount of skill he does possess fails him now. The wine tastes red, nothing more, dark and silty on his tongue. The flat smells of roast and vegetables and he hopes that John had a larger hand in cooking it than Mary. Mary overcooks everything, yet remains attached to the notion that she is somehow a better cook than John. Which is patently untrue; Sherlock has experienced nearly two years of John’s cooking and none of the meals Mary has cooked for his infrequent visits have compared favourably. He falls into an inward well of remembering various exchanges they had over John’s cooking. _What’s this supposed to be? / I don’t know, I just put chicken and stuff in a pan and cooked it. Don’t eat it if you don’t like it. / I never said I didn’t like it. It’s good, actually. What’s it called? / Does it need a name? It’s just chicken and rice and vegetables, Sherlock. Shut up and eat it._ The memory almost makes him smile, but it comes with a stab of loss that punctures deep in his gut. 

“Sherlock.” Startled, he looks up. John is standing in front of him, holding up the wine bottle. “Top you up?” he asks, nodding at Sherlock’s glass. 

“Oh.” Sherlock looks at his glass, which seems to be half-empty. He supposes he must have been drinking while tuning out Mary and Molly. Dangerous habit, that. He would hate to turn into Harry Watson, after all. “I suppose. Yes. Thank you,” he adds stiffly, and holds out his glass. 

John pours, his hand not quite as steady as it usually is, the silence that forms between them the instant they stop speaking heavy and full. “There you are,” John says, a touch of strain audible in his voice. He catches the drip of wine from the side of the bottle with a finger and licks it, avoiding Sherlock’s gaze. He turns away to address everyone. “I think things are just about ready,” he says. “So we might as well go sit down.”

Mary angles her face up at John, an overly-sweet smile plastered to it. “Are you sure the roast is _quite_ done yet, darling?” 

John manages to smile while simultaneously clenching his jaw, Sherlock notes. “Yes,” he says shortly. “Quite sure.” Mary opens her mouth to protest or add something else, but John overrides her. “So let’s sit down,” he reiterates. 

Molly glances at Sherlock and he shrugs, more with his eyebrows than his shoulders, and they get up and drift toward the table, unsure as to where to sit. Sherlock suspects that Mary has a precise layout in mind and he is correct in thinking so. 

“Molly, you sit there, at the end,” Mary directs. “Sherlock, you sit there, across from me.” She manoeuvres her very-pregnant body into the chair directly opposite Sherlock’s and John carries the roast in and sets it down at his own place, across from Molly, to Sherlock’s right. 

Sherlock sits and endures the meal. Mary volleys a question or two his way and he does his best to give enough of an answer to avoid seeming rude, then lets his attention lapse again. John rescued the roast just in time and it’s not dried out. He focuses on chewing and swallowing and drinks a moderate amount of wine to go with it. When the pinot noir is gone, Mary opens an acceptable bottle of chianti, which doesn’t particularly go with the roast but it doesn’t matter. Eventually he becomes aware that Mary is regularly redirecting the conversation back to Molly, specifically on the subject of him. He tunes in again, paying attention properly. 

“Have you ever thought about asking the hospital to employ Sherlock full-time?” Mary asks, her tone all airy innocence. “I’m sure that he could be a big help to you. It would keep him out of trouble, and it would be nice for you both, getting to work together, wouldn’t it?”

John and Molly are both frowning a little. Molly clears her throat and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Erm, actually, it’s usually the other way around,” she says, sounding a touch apologetic for making the correction. “We sometimes help Sherlock out on an investigation. It’s true that there’s a tiny bit of overlap in our jobs but not really all that much.” 

Sherlock feels that perhaps he should say something in Molly’s defense as well. “Precisely,” he says, aware that his tone is a shade cooler than it should be. “Molly and one or two or her colleagues occasionally assist one of my investigations and allow me to use the laboratory’s equipment from time to time. I’m not a pathologist. I would be of little use in return.” 

Mary laughs as though this is hilarious. “Oh, I’m sure she could find a use for you,” she drawls. 

“Mary,” John says, very quietly, but no one pays it any attention. 

Molly is definitely frowning now. “What do you mean by that, exactly?” she asks. Twin spots of colour have bloomed in her cheeks.

She is upset, Sherlock thinks. And justly so. He suspects he knows precisely what Mary is driving at and understands that it is still a sensitive point for Molly. Cruel of Mary, really. 

Mary shrugs and dimples at Molly as though they’re sharing an inside secret. Which is ridiculous, Sherlock thinks, given that every one of them is aware of Molly’s feelings, past or potentially ongoing. “I just mean that it could be good for the both of you,” she says, her smile obviously meant to be kind or possibly encouraging. 

Molly looks down at her plate, where her fork is still speared through a single green bean. “I see,” she says. She lifts her fork, opens her mouth to speak, pauses as though reconsidering, then apparently decides to go ahead and say whatever it is. “Listen,” she says to Mary, her voice firm. “I see what you’re getting at, but – you’re barking up the wrong tree, I’m afraid. If you invited me for dinner to – help, er, set me up with Sherlock, then you asked the wrong person.” 

Sherlock feels his heart clench in his chest. Surely she isn’t going to say it. He cannot look at John and feels John avoiding his eyes with equal care. 

Mary raises her brows coolly. “What do you mean, Molly? Don’t undersell yourself!” 

“I’m not,” Molly says, her voice still gentle but unwavering. She doesn’t quite make eye contact with Sherlock, but turns her face slightly toward him. “Sherlock and I are friends. I think that by now, he knows my value. But if you wanted to set him up with someone, then you should have invited – well – a handsome young man or something. Not me.”

Sherlock feels as though as bomb has just gone off – a bomb of silence. No one moves or speaks. He cannot look at any of them. It’s not a secret – Molly has surely known for ages, John certainly knows since he read the notebook, and he’s long thought that Mary knew or suspected. 

After a moment, Molly clears her throat again. “Sorry, Sherlock,” she says, picking up her nearly-empty wineglass and speaking to him almost from behind it. “But I didn’t think that anyone here didn’t already know that. I thought it was better than going along with – that other thing, though.” 

Sherlock forces his mouth to function. “It’s all right,” he says, the words sounding wooden. He glances across at Mary to catch her eyes narrowed at Molly, obviously calculating or possibly re-evaluating. 

John comes to both their rescue, to Sherlock’s surprise. (Why should that be surprising? John has been rescuing him almost since the day they met.) He clears his own throat and says, “Quite right, Molly. Of course it wasn’t a secret. And we invited you because you’re our friend and we wanted to have dinner together. If Sherlock will give me your glass, I’ll give you a refill, there.” 

Sherlock turns to Molly and raises his eyebrows in silent question, and she drinks the last sip in her glass and gives it to him. Their eyes meet for a moment and Sherlock gives her a shadow of smile, meant to encourage her. He understands perfectly that Mary was not tormenting Molly, that the barb was meant for him, snagging Molly indirectly on its way to him. Of course Mary must know not only his general preferences, but also his specific preference for John. Molly was only trying to spare him, not to ‘out’ him or humiliate him. He understands perfectly. He turns to John and holds out the glass, keeping his eyes on it rather than allowing himself to look at John. The unspoken truth is sitting amongst them as plain as though it was printed in capital letters on the tablecloth: _Sherlock is in love with John_ , but no one is addressing it. The glass grows heavier and cooler in his hand as John fills it. He makes the brief mistake of looking up when John stops pouring, and for a split second their eyes meet. It feels as though a laser bolt catches him in the chest, and Sherlock quickly breaks the eye contact and turns away to give Molly the wine. 

He risks another glance at Mary and sees the arc of her eyebrows, the lines around her mouth. She is furious at having been called out on her ploy, as indirectly and gently as Molly did so. “If you’ve all finished, I’ll take your plates,” she says, her tone still cool. 

“I’ll help you,” John says instantly, and he is the one to reach for their plates and stack them, taking them into the kitchen while Mary heaves herself to her feet and follows with a serving spoon and an empty bowl, leaving Sherlock alone with Molly. 

She turns to him at once. “I’m sorry, Sherlock,” she says at once. “I didn’t mean to out you – I thought they must know already, and I know you’ve never told me, but – ” She glances at the kitchen and lowers her voice. “When you were preparing for his stag night and you came to me for advice – ”

“I know,” Sherlock interrupts, also looking at the kitchen. “It’s fine. Let’s not talk about it here.” Or anywhere else, he thinks but does not say. 

Molly nods, accepting this. “I just wanted to say – I had thought so before, since a long time ago, actually, but – that’s when I became sure. I just – it must be so hard.”

He cannot look at her or else he will come undone. He feels his mouth tighten. “It is. But I don’t – ”

“Got it,” Molly says, and mercifully stops talking about it. 

Mary comes back in with a store-bought banoffee pie. It’s Sherlock’s favourite dessert and he wonders if John told her, or – no, more likely John chose it himself. A peace offering. “John chose this,” Mary says, confirming his thought. “Bit too sweet for me, plus I’m already the size of a house, but you lot go ahead.” 

Molly asks about the baby then. John serves the pie as the conversation turns to the due date and baby things, and neither of the women seem to notice that neither he nor John is talking. Sherlock barely tastes the pie, tasting rather the unhappy silence between them, John’s presence strong to his right where he’s sitting. John quietly offers coffee after a little while and Sherlock accepts it. The bitterness of it cuts through the two spoonfuls of sugar he stirred in, and this he can taste. 

It finally comes to an end when Molly yawns and says things about getting into the lab early the next day and Sherlock goes to put his coat on with relief. He says a hasty thanks and goodbye, then goes outside while Molly is still chatting to Mary about something or other. The door opens behind him, before he can get away, and John is there, saying his name. Sherlock stops, halfway down the walk, but does not turn. “What?”

John sounds unusually hesitant. “I just wanted to say thanks for coming,” he says, and in his mind’s eye, Sherlock can imagine his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans against the cold of the January night. 

He closes his eyes for a moment and exhales deeply, his breath making a cloud of condensation in the air. “No more dinners like this, please,” he says. His voice sounds heavy. 

There is a pause as John absorbs this. “Okay,” he says, accepting it. “I’m – sorry, Sherlock. About Mary, and the thing with Molly. I’m not sure why she… yeah. I’m sorry. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. But I just – ”

He stops, and after a moment Sherlock turns around. “You just what?” he asks evenly, his own hands pushed deep into the pockets of his coat. 

John swallows. “I wanted to see you,” he says, his voice low. “I meant it when I said I meant to go on being friends with you. You’re my best friend. You’re so important to me. I just – ”

Behind John, the door opens and Molly comes out, Mary standing framed in the doorway behind her. John closes his mouth. Whatever he was trying to say, this is not the moment for it. “Heading back downtown?” Molly asks Sherlock, passing John and coming to stand near him. 

Sherlock nods, his eyes still on John’s. “We can share a taxi, if you like.” 

John shivers, coatless. “I’ll, er, call you sometime,” he says, though it’s half a question. 

“John.” Mary’s arms are around herself. “You’ll catch a cold standing around without a jacket on!” 

Sherlock sees the exasperation that crosses John’s face. “I’m coming,” he says to Mary without turning back. “Just a moment.” 

Sherlock hesitates, then nods. “If you want to… I’d like that,” he says, keeping his voice too low for Mary to catch. Molly is at the end of the walk, waiting. He turns away and goes to join her, not even sure what it is that he is feeling about this. Cautiously optimistic? And yet, behind him, John has gone back into the warm haven of the roast-scented flat, the leftover wine and pie, and the fecund curve of his wife’s belly, the heartbeat of his child within. No: there is no room for optimism here. He follows Molly to the nearest main road in silence. 

She does not break it for the first fifteen minutes. Then, at last, with her face still turned toward the window, she decides to speak. “The worst bit of all that was that I didn’t even know which of us she meant to hurt more.” 

Startled from his melancholy, Sherlock turns his head to look at her. “What?” 

“Mary,” Molly says, turning her own head to meet his gaze. “You realise she must know how you feel about John. That’s why she did it. To torment you. Vicious bitch,” she adds, with unusual venom. 

Sherlock registers slight surprise; he was not previously aware of Molly’s negative feelings for Mary. He hadn’t put Molly on the list of people who hate her. Then again, it just goes to show that he’s underestimated Molly once again. He holds her gaze, focusing properly on her. “Only she didn’t mind being cruel to you to get at me,” he says. He releases breath through his nose and looks straight ahead again. “I’m sorry. The entire evening was a bad idea.” 

“I have no idea why Mary thought this particular group would be a good choice of people, unless she only invited me to tease you that way,” Molly says flatly. “She and I have nothing whatsoever in common.” 

“I know,” Sherlock says, watching the city pass out the window. 

Molly hesitates, then says, “It’s all right, you know. About me. It’s not – it’s all right, now. But you – ” She stops. “You love him, don’t you.” It isn’t a question. 

Sherlock doesn’t answer immediately, but it does occur to him that perhaps Molly Hooper, of all people, deserves a real answer about this. “Of course,” he says, the words directed at the window. “I always have.”

Molly doesn’t reply, but after a moment she reaches over and squeezes his forearm, just the once. No one says anything for the duration of the drive. 

The taxi stops at Baker Street first. Sherlock gives the cabbie enough to cover the rest of the distance to Molly’s small flat ten minutes further, and gets out. So much for that, he thinks, and goes to let himself into the dark flat. 

*** 

Days pass. Sherlock is aware that Mary’s due date is approaching and grits his teeth every time he thinks of it. He lies listlessly around the flat and torments himself by reading through the notebook again. It’s spoiled now. Those scribbled, half-finished letters were something he considered bittersweet, but now whatever sweetness was there for him was stripped away when they were seen, the veil of secrecy lifted. They should have stayed hidden, unseen by any eyes but his own. Better still, they never should have been committed to writing, given physical shape and form for the very person they concerned to stumble upon. Like Eve and the apple, Sherlock thinks, the fact that he does not believe in any of that notwithstanding. It’s nevertheless a good metaphor. 

Some of the letters could be considered quite romantic, he thinks, feeling wistful that they nonetheless failed to move John, evidently. But then there are others, things that hardly even make sense. He finds a page that says nothing but _Difference between Indian and Chinese eggplant? Ask John_ and squirms with discomfort in knowing that John read that, that John knows that now that he has always been Sherlock’s go-to for things unknown, for his every daily query about anything and everything. That instead of having a normal inner monologue, Sherlock has always had John, present or otherwise. He never should have written it down, any of it. He thinks about burning the notebook, but somehow he cannot bring himself to do it. It hardly matters now, anyway. Instead, Sherlock wraps it in an old shirt he no longer wears and stows it with care in the third drawer of his dresser, near the back. He knows that he will never forget its presence, just as John will never forget its contents, but perhaps in time they will both come to care less. 

*** 

Four days after the dinner, Lestrade finally phones in the late afternoon and offers him a case. A double homicide in a Barclay’s, one of the Westminster branches. Lestrade feeds him a few details over the phone and Sherlock is intrigued, his interest rousing again for the first time in weeks. He ends the call and texts John. _Case. Barclay’s in Westminster, corner of Thayer and New Cavendish. Two bodies. Can you come?_ He sets the phone down to put his shoes and coat on. By the time he’s finished buttoning the latter, there’s a response: 

_Sure. I might get called away, if_  
_the baby decides to show up and all,_  
_but I’d like to help. I’ll be there_  
_in ten._

Sherlock’s pulse spikes and the resultant adrenaline carries him down the stairs and into the street, hailing the first taxi he sees. At the bank, there are police cruisers and crime tape everywhere. Lestrade is talking into his phone and to a junior officer simultaneously, but stops both when Sherlock walks up to him. 

“Sherlock! Great, you’re here,” he says, sounding distracted, closing the phone. “Look – ” This is directed at the junior officer. “Go and interview those witnesses over there, the ones who heard the shots.” He turns back to Sherlock and opens his mouth. 

Sherlock cuts him off at the pass. “Where are the bodies?” 

“Inside. Come on.” Lestrade leads the way. “Where’s John?” 

“On his way. Have someone let him in when he comes,” Sherlock orders, and Lestrade doesn’t object. 

“It’s a security guard and the branch manager,” Lestrade tells him, pushing open the door and speaking over his shoulder. “They were each shot multiple times by a .45 calibre gun. The security cameras were disabled before the robbery took place.” 

“An inside job, or how did the killer gain access?” Sherlock asks, as Lestrade pulls down the tape barring the way into the vault. 

“Don’t know yet.” Lestrade falls silent, letting Sherlock go past him to where the two bodies are lying. The body of the security guard is sprawled backward over that of the manager. Clearly the guard was trying to shield his boss, to no avail. 

Sherlock gazes at the bodies in silence for a moment, heaped in the doorway and blocking the entrance to the vault. “How much did the thief get away with?” 

“We don’t know that yet, either. Some of the branch employees are trying to work it out right now. How much was in each safe and all that.” 

Sherlock senses rather than hears John’s step behind him. “Jesus,” John says softly, staring at the bodies. 

Lestrade turns to acknowledge him. “I’ll give you two a few minutes here,” he says. 

“May need longer.” Sherlock isn’t looking at him, his focus divided between the crime scene and John’s presence, not necessarily in that order. 

“As you like,” Lestrade says, already walking away. 

John moves past him to crouch near the bodies. “Gloves?”

“Here.” Sherlock pulls a fresh pair from the pocket of his coat and gives them to John, then pulls on another pair, himself. “Lestrade says the bullet casings were .45’s.” 

John doesn’t respond immediately, his small, strong, fingers probing the chest of the security guard delicately. He unbuttons the man’s shirt and then unclasps the bulletproof vest beneath to examine the flesh, then points. “Look,” he says. “He was shot in the shoulder and the side of the neck. Bleed-out would have been quick, at least. I don’t see any dents in the vest. The shooter would have known he was wearing a one and not to bother.” 

“Interesting,” Sherlock says. “What about the manager?” 

“Help me move him,” John says, meaning the guard, so Sherlock moves forward and they carefully shift the guard onto the floor of the vault so that John can examine the manager’s body. Sherlock sees it immediately but defers to John, who points at the bullet holes. “Cause of death is pretty obvious,” he states. “Two clear hits to the chest cavity. This one likely punctured the right lung and this one almost certainly hit the heart, maybe the liver as well.” 

A bit like his own shot, then. Sherlock does not say it, and neither does John, but he can sense that they’re both thinking it. He looks around the vault and takes a large step over the body of the guard. All of the safes are closed, which suggests that the thief didn’t leave in any particular hurry. Though… he tries all seven safes, the six smaller ones and the seventh larger one, and discovers with interest that one of the six is not locked, just closed. It is empty. He closes it again, turns the top combination lock, and tries it again. Now it is locked. Curious. He looks at the seven boxes, each equipped with two combination locks, and wonders how many people have access to how many of the dials. Fourteen dials, but each one could be accessed by only one employee. However, that is not particularly likely. He and John have handled bank heists before, and he knows that banks normally operate in such a way to prevent inside jobs by dispersing the combinations among enough of the employees to ensure that the pay-out would be too low to make a robbery worthwhile. It would have to be divided at least five or six ways no matter which safes were accessed, and who would take the risk of robbing a bank for a profit of only ten or fifteen thousand quid? “Who did this?” he asks aloud, more to himself than to John. (It’s the same thing.)

“No idea,” John tells him, looking up at last. “Security cameras?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “They were disabled.” 

“Street cams, then,” John says. “CCTV.” 

“Lestrade is working on that.” 

John straightens up. “Let’s go, then. There’s nothing to be done for these two. We’ll send them for autopsies, but it’s pretty clear how they died.” 

Sherlock nods and leads the way out of the vault. It feels strangely normal, just working a crime scene with John again. The crime gives them both something else to focus on. It’s a relief, frankly. Perhaps their work will save them from him, from his unwelcome feelings. Sherlock gives his head a shake and directs his focus to the case. “I want to talk to the assistant manager, find out how much was stolen.”

John falls into step beside him, like he always has. “Let’s go find him, then.” 

*** 

A hour later, Sherlock has the thief. Or thieves, rather. He explains it all to John with Lestrade listening intently in: Kevin Clark is a senior teller and one of three employees with access to the top lock of that particular safe. The employees with access to the bottom lock are three completely different people, however one of them, a junior teller named Nigel Grint, has a small notebook kept in his top drawer containing all of his combinations. As the senior teller, Clark would certainly have had access to Grint’s drawer and may well have had the chance to lift the notebook unobserved. Furthermore, Clark had just received a shipment of American dollars ordered by a client and had failed to store it in the appropriate safe (foreign currency), instead overloading the holding limits for another safe (coin orders). Sherlock surmises aloud that he assumes that Clark had intended to inform the client that the shipment had failed to arrive, order it again, and write the difference off as an error to be blamed on the head branch which had seemingly failed to ship the cash order. 

“You’ll be able to prove it easily enough a few different ways,” Sherlock tells them, addressing Lestrade now. “First, find out who signed for the cash order when it was delivered. There’s your proof that it _was_ delivered. It was entered into the foreign currency ledger, here.” He taps the appropriate line in the book, reading _$50,000.00 USD_. “Second, question Colleen Dale, who co-signed the vault balance report with Clark.” He points at the sheet of paper in question. “She should have visually accounted for all amounts she signed for, but employees tend to get into routines, I’ve often found. Third, you can confirm the shipment with the head branch if need be. And fourth, you can check the bank’s internal closed circuit cameras for proof of him lifting Grint’s notebook of passwords.” 

Sherlock finishes delivering all of this, feeling awkwardly aware of the reference to secret notebooks having been read, but when he risks a glance at John, he sees nothing but an almost proprietary pride glowing on John’s face. “That,” John says, his voice unwavering, “was absolutely incredible. All of this paperwork to go through, and you got there _this_ quickly? Sherlock, you’re – ” He stops abruptly, suddenly becoming aware of his gushing. 

Sherlock very much wants to hear the end of the compliment, but it seems he isn’t going to get it. He turns to Lestrade, trying to swallow down the disappointment. “Furthermore,” he says, opting to go on rather than give Lestrade a chance to respond to the first block of information, “he wasn’t alone.” 

“He wasn’t?” Lestrade demands. “How do you know that? And who was it, then? Grint? He’s only worked at this branch for five months.” 

Sherlock shakes his head. “Look,” he says. “Really look, for once!” He opens Clark’s top drawer and points at a small container of lavender-scented hand lotion, a tube of lip balm, and a single rhinestone earring mixed into his other personal effects. “Feminine belongings. Furthermore, if you check the security cameras, you’ll see that one person entered the branch ten minutes before closing and failed to leave.” He punches in the access code for the cameras’ feed again and selects the screen showing the front entrance. At ten minutes to four, a young woman with long, dark hair tied back and partially hidden beneath a hat enters the bank. Sherlock switches screens and fast-forwards through customers exiting the branch from that point until the security guard is shown closing and locking the doors. “She never left. We need to find out who she is.” 

“Amazing,” John breathes, more to himself than anyone else, and it sends a spike of something fierce and almost painful through Sherlock’s chest. 

“Actually, we may have something there,” Donovan says coolly, having come to stand near Lestrade while Sherlock was showing the footage. 

“What is it?” Lestrade asks her. 

Donovan indicates the assistant manager, who was brought in for questioning. “He says that Clark was in a relationship with someone. She used to work here. Name’s Robin Quinn. She was transferred to another branch four months ago, but the assistant manager says she used to come in to meet Clark and chat with the others from time-to-time.” 

“Get him over here,” Sherlock orders, meaning the assistant manager. 

Donovan glowers but does as he says, going to collect the man. He comes over and peers at the frozen image of the woman on the screen. “Yes,” he says. “That’s Robin.” 

Sherlock turns to John. “Want to bet she was the teller who shipped the cash?” he asks, and John smirks. “I’ll need her address,” Sherlock informs the assistant manager. 

“What makes you think they’re at her place?” Lestrade wants to know. “They could just as easily be at his.” 

“This is a woman who has deliberately left her things in his drawer and he hasn’t removed them,” Sherlock says. “It’s a mark of establishing dominance. They’ll be at her place.”

The assistant manager bends to write, then gives him a slip of paper. “Address,” he says. 

John looks at Sherlock. “Let’s go,” he says, nodding toward the door and turns to go. 

Sherlock thinks, _Mark of establishing dominance,_ but does not say it. Instead he falls into step beside John as he leads the way out to the pavement, Lestrade hard on their heels. He feels a rush of adrenaline and it’s almost enough to hide the spike in his heart. 

*** 

He was right, as he expected. The thieves were foolishly sitting about the kitchen table, counting the stolen money when Lestrade and some nameless officers burst in through the front door. The money has already been recovered, all fifty thousand of it, and Lestrade is about to sit down to question the two culprits. 

Sherlock puts a hand on his shoulder. “Separate them,” he says, and feels Lestrade nod his agreement. 

“Right, yeah, good idea,” he says. “I’ll take one of them into the sitting room. Who do you want?” 

Sherlock’s eyes go to Robin Quinn. Her entire demeanour is far more defensive than Clark’s, who has been sitting quietly without resisting the entire time. He weighs the choice. “We’ll take Quinn first, then we can switch,” he says, and Lestrade agrees. 

“Come on,” he says to Clark, who gets up and goes into the sitting room without protest. 

Quinn remains, her arms crossed over a slender frame. She’s pretty, Sherlock thinks, surveying her. Roughly thirty years old, wide, dark blue eyes, an expressive mouth. Her hair is still pulled back, though the hat has been removed. No interest in starting a family, Sherlock thinks, noting the bottle of birth control medication sitting on the kitchen counter. Interesting. He pulls out one of the chairs for John, then sits down in the other one across from her. “So,” he says, lacing his fingers together and starting pleasantly. “A young woman with a promising career at Barclay’s decides to steal fifty thousand US dollars. Why would that be, I wonder?” 

Quinn leans back in her seat, arms still crossed. “I’m not saying a word without a solicitor present.” 

Beside him, John stirs, joining Sherlock in leaning forward, his hands a mirror of Sherlock’s, too. “You do have the right to a solicitor, true,” he tells her, his voice gentle. “Just from what I’ve seen so far, though, insisting on one really makes a person look guilty. I mean, we know you’re guilty of robbing a bank at the very least. We know it was you who sent the cash shipment and kept it off the books. We caught you right here in your own kitchen counting the stolen money. What we don’t know is whose idea it was to rob the bank, or who shot and killed the two men who died there today. If you’re open with us about it, it could make a big difference in the way you’re charged and sentenced. We’re not the police. This isn’t on any official record. My advice is to tell us as much as you can.” 

Bravo, John, Sherlock thinks silently. John has a knack for connecting with people that he’s always lacked. Women especially, which used to bother him, but ever since Mary came into his life, it hardly seems to matter any more. He watches Quinn’s reaction to this, takes in the narrowing of her eyes, the calculating tightening of her mouth. She was decidedly the brains behind the operation. “Was it your idea?” he asks directly, not giving her time to respond to John. 

Her gaze shifts to him. “Obviously it was a joint plan,” she says, sounding unimpressed. “I can tell you that no one was supposed to die, though. Everyone was supposed to have left the branch by then.” 

“What went wrong?” John asks. “Did the branch manager have a late meeting or something?” 

Quinn nods. “He let the client out. It was the opening of a business account, so there was an opening deposit made. Since Adam only had top and bottom access to the holding safe, I guess he decided to leave the cash there until the deposit could be posted in the morning.” She pauses. “We didn’t realise there was still a guard in the building, either.” 

“Adam – that would be Adam Carrington, the manager?” John asks, clarifying, and Quinn nods. 

“Curious,” Sherlock says. “Was that not usually the case?” 

“No, though if Adam knew he’d be making a deposit, he might have asked Joe to stay just as a witness. We didn’t know, though. It was supposed to look like I was just there, waiting to meet Kevin, only we didn’t realise they were in the vault. We didn’t realise Adam was even still there; his office is on the second storey. The meeting wasn’t on his agenda.” Quinn glares at her hands. “He shouldn’t have been there. He got himself killed.” 

“By – whom, exactly?” Sherlock asks, point-blank. When Quinn remains defiantly silent, he presses her. “Who shot Adam and Joe?” 

“I’m not saying anything else,” Quinn says, her face going sullen. 

“Come on,” Sherlock says, impatient. “There was only one gun. We found the bullet casings – sloppy work there, by the way. Only one finger could have pulled the trigger. Either you’ll tell us or your boyfriend will. Would you rather wait for him to tell us it was you?” 

Quinn raises her eyes to his, and there is fury blazing in them. Somehow Sherlock feels satisfied to have broken past that cold exterior to get this. “Fine, it was him,” she says shortly. “Happy?” 

“Not particularly,” Sherlock says. “You stood by and watched your boyfriend kill two people – people you knew and had worked with for nearly three years before your transfer to the main branch. All for fifty thousand dollars? Was it really worth as little as that?” 

She swallows and looks away, refusing to meet either of their gazes. “We had our reasons,” she mutters. 

John shakes his head. “Fifty thousand dollars,” he repeats, with disgust. “You two knew the bank. You had to have known that someone was going to find a fifty thousand dollar imbalance sooner or later. You couldn’t have hidden the paperwork forever. Why take the risk in the first place? Why American money? Were the two of you planning to run off and start a new life in America or something? With fifty thousand dollars? That would get you, what, two years of rent in Manhattan?”

Sherlock snorts. “Really poor planning,” he says. “Though I would imagine that you only chose American funds because you thought it would be hidden longer in the ledgers. Why would you do this?” 

Quinn shrugs and examines her fingernails. Sherlock’s gaze follows, his eyes settling on the skin around her right fingertips. “You’d have to ask Kevin. It was all his idea.”

“Interesting,” Sherlock says, his tone markedly cooler.

John looks at him. “Why is that interesting, particularly?” he asks. 

Sherlock shifts his eyes from Quinn’s fingers to her face. “Interesting, considering that she’s the one with powder burns on her fingers,” he says. Quinn hesitates for a fraction of a second, then gets up and attempts to bolt from the kitchen. John is on his feet and has grabbed her before she can even get around the table. As he is wrestling her back into her chair, Sherlock shakes his head and tosses John his cuffs. “Should have worn gloves,” he advises. He raises his voice. “Lestrade! Let’s switch!” 

John has cuffed Quinn to her chair, he notes. They go into the corridor, meeting Lestrade there. Sherlock keeps his voice down and tells him what they know. “What did Clark tell you?” he asks. 

Lestrade shakes his head. “Refused to say much, just that it was his idea. Wouldn’t say a word about the shooting, though. Interesting. I guess he didn’t want to give her away.” 

“We’ll get it out of him,” Sherlock promises. He and John go into the sitting room. Clark is sitting on the sofa, his hair messy as though he’s raked his fingers through it, strain showing in his forehead and neck. Evidently Lestrade was standing for the questioning. Sherlock looks around and finds an armchair to drag over. John goes and sits beside Clark on the sofa. “So,” Sherlock says briskly, sitting down. “The question, Kevin, is why you’re protecting your girlfriend.” 

He starts with this pronouncement and sits back to see how Clark will react. He looks back and forth between them, startled. “What makes you think it was Robin?” he asks, wary. “What did she say?” 

“That it was your idea,” John tells him bluntly. “And that you were the one who shot Adam and Joe. Can I see your hands?” 

Clark looks at Sherlock, then shows John his hands, palms up. John takes his right hand and inspects it. “What are you doing?” Clark asks. 

“You’re right-handed, I presume,” John says. 

“Yes, but – ”

“No powder burns,” John tells Sherlock. He looks back at Clark. “And yet, Robin has powder burns on her right hand. It’s not rocket science. But she told us that you did it. What do you have to say about that?” 

Clark hesitates, his mouth opening. A pained expression comes over his face. “No one was supposed to die,” he says, exhaling hard. 

“Don’t prevaricate,” Sherlock orders. “We know that Robin shot your manager and a security guard. Would you deny that? You can try taking the blame yourself, but she is obviously the one who fired the gun.” 

Clark’s throat bobs as he swallows hard. “She said that I did it?” 

John hesitates. “Yes,” he says. “I’m sorry, Kevin, but she did. She also said that the entire idea was yours. Is that true?” 

“I – _no_ ,” Clark says vehemently. “She came up with it months ago, kept on at me until I agreed to do it. I said it was too risky. I said the payoff was too small. And I absolutely didn’t want anyone to get hurt, never mind – I’ll never forgive myself for that. I didn’t even know she had a gun. I’m still in shock, honestly. We were sitting there, counting the money, and all I could think was that it was blood money, fifty thousand dollars for two lives and a permanent criminal record. I didn’t even know what I was supposed to think or feel.” 

“Would you have left her?” John asks, his voice gentle. 

Clark swallows again. “I don’t know,” he says, in what Sherlock considers genuine honesty. It sounds painful. “I love her. I was going to ask her to marry me. I didn’t know she was – someone who could kill someone.” 

John glances at Sherlock and their eyes meet for a long moment. After a minute, Sherlock says, “Tell us exactly which parts of this you were responsible for. We know some of it. You stole Nigel Grint’s combinations and kept the cash shipment off the books. It was you who opened the safe, since Robin’s combinations would have been changed once she left the branch. You concealed her presence in the branch before it closed. You disabled the security feed. Am I missing anything?” 

Clark shakes his head. “Robin dealt with the cameras,” he says. “She’s a whizz at tech stuff like that. I didn’t…” He trails off, and Sherlock realises that he feels genuine pity for the man. “I guess there was a lot I didn’t know about her,” he says at last, sounding miserable. 

Sherlock makes a split-second decision. He bends forward and lowers his voice. “Get up and walk out of here,” he says, and Clark meets his eyes soberly. 

John looks at him in astonishment. “Sherlock – ”

Sherlock doesn’t budge. “You’ll already have to live with this,” he tells Clark. “But you would never allow yourself to do something like this again, I presume.”

“No – _never_ ,” Clark says, his voice shaking. “But – why would you let me go? You caught me right in the act of having robbed a bank – I – ”

His stammering dies off as he looks from Sherlock to John and back again. Sherlock shakes his head. “You don’t have much time. I will explain it. Just get out and don’t come back. Go back to your flat and take what you need, then go somewhere else and start a new life. There’s no point staying behind for a woman who was willing to let you take the fall for her, and who is going to prison regardless. So leave.” He grows impatient, Clark still hesitating. “Do it now!” 

Clark takes a deep, unsteady breath. “Okay,” he says, and gets to his feet. He hesitates. “Thank you.” 

“Just go,” Sherlock says, and John doesn’t protest as Clark walks from the room and quietly lets himself out of the flat. 

“Are you completely sure about that?” John asks, his voice low. “Lestrade may be furious.” 

“I’ll deal with him,” Sherlock says. The air between them feels constrained. He can already hear the question forming on John’s lips. 

“Why did you let him go?” John asks, precisely as expected. 

Sherlock stands. Seated, he is too close to John. In his mind’s eye, he sees the glaring lights of the helicopters, hears his brother’s voice, as panicked as he’s ever heard it over the loudspeakers, blood pooling from beneath Magnussen’s still form. “People do stupid things for the people they love,” he says tightly. 

John understands at once. “Ah,” he says, his voice sounding every bit as strained. “Sherlock…” He trails off and the silence grows painful. 

When it becomes clear that John isn’t going to say anything else, Sherlock swallows past the hardness in his throat and starts back to the kitchen. “So, Ms Quinn,” he says, aware of John’s silent presence behind him, having followed him. He may be interrupting Lestrade’s interrogation but does not care at the moment. “Tell us where you got the gun.” 

*** 

It’s nearly midnight when Sherlock leaves the crime scene. Lestrade gave him a bit of grief about having let Clark go, but seemed to have understood better than he should have, his eyes sweeping Sherlock’s face with a little too much comprehension for Sherlock’s preference. (Does everyone in the world have to know?) He’d dropped it fairly easily, and Robin Quinn has been arrested on the charge of two counts of murder as well as having robbed a bank. 

He walks out onto the pavement, aware of John’s presence silent next to him. When they reach the main road, Sherlock raises his arm to hail a taxi and one slows at the kerb. “That’s for you,” he says, opening the door for John. 

John goes to get in. “Thanks, but we can share it if you want,” he says, sliding into the nearer space. 

Sherlock refuses immediately. “You’ve got longer to go and I need to think. Good night.” He closes the door and raises his arm for another cab, steadfastly avoiding the sight of John’s pulling away, taking him back to the other side of the city, to Mary. He gets into the car when it stops, gives his address, and slumps back into the seat. It’s always a wrench, not having John around again, and yet it’s also a relief in a way. But he’d rather have John there. The dynamic between them did not recover after his statement in the sitting room, the awkwardness of his having said it aloud following them around like a cloud for the rest of the evening. Is it always to be this way now? It seems that it may. How long will John tolerate this difficulty, the knowledge of Sherlock’s feelings constantly and irremovably with them at all times? It does not strike Sherlock as having a particularly long viability. 

The taxi stops in front of 221B Baker Street. It is dark and cold when he goes inside, and very quiet. Sherlock stops at the foot of the stairs for a long moment and listens to the silence. Mrs Hudson must be in bed or in Devonshire visiting her sister. Sherlock goes quietly up the stairs to his own flat and feels the solitude condense around him like cold water. 

*** 

Nothing is any different when he wakes. The sun is what disturbs his sleep, its long arms stretching in through the bedroom window and stealing up the foot of his bed. Sherlock yawns and stretches and remembers the bank robbery and how things are with John now. The listlessness sets in again and he turns onto his front and tries to evade it in sleep. It doesn’t work. Perhaps he has slept enough. The sheet has slipped down his back, the sunlight warm on his skin. There was a time when he might have spent a few lazy minutes imagining waking up this way with John, naked between the sheets, sunlight spilling lazily into the room and onto them. John laughing, the fine golden hair Sherlock has spent lengthy amounts of time subtly observing on his skin glinting in the sun. The warmth of it all: John’s low laughter, the sunlight, shared body heat absorbed into the bed, skin on skin… Sherlock opens his eyes and grits his jaw. There is no point in imagining scenes like this that will never come to pass. Not since his forced disappearance or the advent of Mary Morstan. He thinks of the notebook, of the knowledge which John should never have possessed, and the despair grows exponentially. 

Lying in bed loses its appeal. Sherlock forces himself to get up and pads naked into the bathroom to relieve himself and shower. Everything feels pointless and stupid. He glares at himself while shaving and brushes his teeth as though they were singlehandedly responsible for John having read the notebook. For John’s marriage, and Mary’s pregnancy. For his own failings that have rendered him so unviable as an option for John. Worst, he thinks, as he dispiritedly watches the toaster, waiting for the bread to pop up, he cannot tell now whether anything would have been any different had he actually told John how he felt in the days before. It’s true that he didn’t realise it entirely until he was actually away from John, but he’d known there was something. He’d debated it privately, wondering how John would react. He’d had many of those imaginary conversations, trying to decide whether John would have been pleased or prosaic or kind but definitely uninterested. Those conversations had always been easier to imagine. _I’m flattered, Sherlock, but you know I’ve never thought of you that way. I’m not gay._ Or even more heartfelt conversations about the beauty of their friendship and not wanting to risk it. And yet now that John knows, Sherlock still has no idea how he might have reacted had he been free. 

The toaster releases then, startling him. Sherlock scowls, exasperated with himself, and carries his tea and toast to his chair, one of the newspapers tucked under his arm. The police report will have hit the news cycle too late to show coverage of the Quinn/Clark heist. He thinks briefly of Kevin Clark and wonders where he will go. He wonders if John saw the parallel to himself and his own poor choice of partner. 

The day passes interminably. Sherlock gets dressed for no reason other than to give himself something to do, turns down two cases offered through his blog, has a nap on the sofa, and eats some leftover beef stew that Mrs Hudson brought up a few days earlier for supper. The silence in the flat is unbearable, but he cannot seem to stir himself to break it somehow. Add something to the sound space to make it seem less empty. He feels no desire to play. In fact, he has not touched his violin since he was shot. John deemed it too strenuous early on, and after that he was preoccupied with the question of Magnussen and Mary and what to do about it all. If John were home, he’d have had the news on, or possibly some inane thing on the telly. A quiz show or something. They used to play together sometimes, against the candidates. They nearly always won. 

Sherlock’s musings pervade the sitting room in the gathering dark. He feels the temptation to smoke, but after the fire, he decided not to risk the flat that way again. Although, come to think of it, the idea of a fire – a controlled one – holds some appeal. It always used to be John who would light the fires on cold winter nights. Tonight definitely would have been a night for a fire. Sherlock goes to the small grate and clears out the ashes, then sets about building a small, tidy fire. When he is satisfied that the wood has caught, he closes the guard and settles himself into his chair. It helps, somehow. The crackling and popping brings the very smallest amount of sound into the space, and the warmth helps, too. 

He is half lost in his thoughts when the door downstairs opens. Sherlock looks up, listening for the step. His heart seems to stop in his throat. It’s John. Why is John coming here, now? He checks the time hastily on the clock above the mantle. It’s past nine. His pulse doubles, his eyes fixed on the doorway of the flat. When John appears in it, he somehow finds himself on his feet. “John,” he says, the name sticking in his throat. 

John’s face makes his chest tighten. He turns and closes the door behind him. “Hi,” he says quietly. His fists ball and release again. “You… must be wondering why I’m here,” he says. 

Sherlock watches him, feeling wary. “You know you’re always welcome here,” he says, prevaricating, waiting. 

John takes a few steps closer. “I thought we should talk,” he says. His voice is firm and unhesitating. “It’s about that notebook of yours. What you wrote in it.” 

Sherlock’s heart beat accelerates alarmingly. “What about it?” he asks jerkily, too fast, betraying his fear. Is this where John tells him that what he has learned has compromised their friendship irreparably? Is he here to end it? Nicely, but very definitely? Better to tie up this uncomfortable loose end once and for all, before the baby is born and his new life can start fully, unshadowed by this thing which has no particular place in said new life? 

John takes a moment, seemingly choosing his words with care, which Sherlock does not find reassuring. He takes a deep breath, then says, “What you wrote – I said it would be hard to forget, and it is. The thing is, I can’t force myself to not know what you said. I shouldn’t have read it, but I did, and now that I know, I just can’t ignore the way you feel, Sherlock.” 

Sherlock’s ability to breathe appears to be compromised. Stabbing pains like needles seem to be puncturing his very being. He cannot respond, cannot find something to say to this. But John goes on, looking at him now, his shoulders squared as though steeling himself for impact. 

“And I can’t ignore the way I feel, either,” he says softly, and Sherlock’s entire world seems to tilt on its axis. 

“What?” he says stupidly, staring at John. 

John shakes his head, unsmiling, looking down. “I can’t believe you didn’t know, Sherlock. You always know. About everyone and everything. I used to always tell myself that I wasn’t that good at hiding it, that you were only pretending not to see it to spare my feelings. It was always there, though. I did my best to push it away, pretend I didn’t, because I never thought it could happen, that you might want that. But now that I know how you feel, I just can’t repress it or ignore either your feelings _or_ mine. It’s not fair to either of us.” He looks up now, and Sherlock sees it at last, stamped all over his face, plain to read. 

His voice is caught in his throat. “John – I don’t – I didn’t – ” He doesn’t know what to say and feels helpless with it. 

“It’s the worst timing in the world,” John says, a bitter laugh that hurts to hear coming from his throat. “I’m married. To the person who shot you. Who is about to have a child. _My_ child. I’ve made such a mess of everything and I have literally nothing to offer you, Sherlock. I can’t give you myself, my life, my – and yet it doesn’t change the way I feel. The way I’ve felt for a really long time now.” 

There is so much to say that Sherlock can’t work out which of it to say first. The first priority finally makes itself clear. “But you do – you really do feel that,” he says, feeling stunned. 

John shakes his head again. “More than I know how to tell you,” he says starkly. “I hate that we bungled this so horribly, completely missed each other like we did. So now, given that it is what it is, here’s the question, Sherlock: if I gave us one night – only one – would you take it? If you knew that was all it could ever be, would you still want it?” 

“John – ” Sherlock can hear how strained he sounds, how dangerously unfiltered. He cannot help it now, cannot help the words spilling from his mouth. “You must know by now that I would never turn you down. But – what are you offering, exactly?” 

John comes closer, his eyes rooted to Sherlock’s, closing the gap until there are only two metres between them. “Anything you want,” he says, his voice low. “Anything. Everything. If it’s only ever going to happen this one time, I want it to be what it should be, whatever we both want. But it’s up to you. If you think it would be too hard to have it once and then let it go, then – ”

“No,” Sherlock interrupts, absolutely certain about this. “I don’t care about that. I want this more than anything – ” He takes a large step forward and John moves to meet him in the middle of the room. His hands settle onto Sherlock’s hips, warm and solid and real. Sherlock’s heart is thundering so loudly it must be audible to John. Before he can ascertain what to do with his own hands, John looks up into his eyes for a moment, then bends forward and puts his mouth to Sherlock’s. His lips are warm and the sensation of it is intensely sweet, far sweeter than Sherlock ever imagined. He kisses back instinctively. His arms somehow make their way around John’s shoulders as their mouths press together and John’s slide around his back like puzzle pieces fitting together. Sherlock’s heart is beating so wildly that it might batter its way through his rib cage to burrow into John’s skin and chest cavity like a heat-seeking missile, fusing itself to John’s. It is his first real kiss, the first kiss he’s ever shared with someone he feels this way about, and it’s enough to make him feel drunk, lighter than air. John releases his mouth for nanoseconds at a time, only to reclaim it again and over, his hand cupping Sherlock’s face now. Sherlock never wants it to end. Time stops meaning anything, even the crackling of the fire disappearing into a world of breath and lips and arms, drinking kisses from John’s mouth over and over again, their arms tight around one another. It feels like five years of denied, suppressed feeling releasing slowly, building as it goes. 

John stops for a moment, his eyes opening into Sherlock’s, his pupils flushed darkly into his midnight-grey irises, plain to read. “God, it feels good to finally do this,” he says, half in a whisper. “We’ve waited so long for it.” 

Sherlock cannot muster coherent speech. John’s name is the only thing that comes to his lips, half-plea and half-prayer. “John…” 

John takes pity on him and kisses him again, his lips open now, catching at Sherlock’s lower lip, showing him. Sherlock understands and opens his mouth to John. It feels exquisitely intimate and he is fumbling his way through this, but John doesn’t appear to be bothered by his inexpert technique, driven by sheer force of want alone. Instead, John presses himself closer to Sherlock, their torsos touching all down their fronts, and when his tongue touches Sherlock’s for the first time, a flush of arousal sweeps through his body and prickles into his skin. Sherlock hears a sound of uncontrolled need come from his throat, primal and base. He holds John more tightly and their kissing grows hungrier, needier. John releases his mouth and turns his attention to Sherlock’s throat and neck as Sherlock pants helplessly, his fingers clutching John’s back and hair. John is kissing his throat, lips and tongue lavishing over Sherlock’s sensitive skin, his hammering pulse, those small, strong fingers pulling Sherlock’s shirt from his trousers. “What do you want?” John asks, the question punctured by his lips on Sherlock’s jaw line now. His nose nuzzles into Sherlock’s neck, lips and tongue catching his ear lobe. “I want to do what you want. Anything at all. It’s all yours.” 

“I want… you,” Sherlock manages, the words tangling with his breath, his very skin on fire. “I don’t – have the vocabulary for this. I only know that want to be with you.” 

John’s mouth finds its way to his again and they kiss almost violently, needy sounds coming from both their throats now. “Yes,” John says against his lips. “Yes, Sher – that’s what I want.” His fingers slip the buttons of Sherlock’s shirt open and then he is kissing Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock’s mouth is open, breathing hard, and when John’s tongue finds his left nipple, he groans without meaning to. His shirt gets pushed off his shoulders and down his arms, but his cuffs are still buttoned and this is a problem. “Get those undone,” John tells him, mouth on his jaw again, and Sherlock hastens to comply. 

“What about you?” he asks, still breathing heavily, and John nods and strips his jumper off, and the vest under it, too. 

These get tossed aside along with Sherlock’s shirt, and then John pulls him into his arms again, pressing their bare chests together, and it feels better than anything Sherlock has felt before. His entire body is ablaze with desire so thick he cannot breathe around it, his skin on fire, blood boiling with it as it plummets south and fills his flesh, his genitals flushing and growing beyond his control. Will John feel it? Be turned off by it? The question answers itself soon enough when John’s hands both stroke down his nude back and pull at his arse, aligning their pelvises. Sherlock feels it, feels John’s answering desire growing in his jeans, and the sensation courses through his frame like an electric shock. An embarrassingly loud sound comes out of his mouth and his knees buckle and give way, but John’s arms catch him and steady him. 

“It’s okay,” John says, and lowers him to the carpet, lying down half on him and half beside him. His hand caresses Sherlock’s face, his own expression full of a fierce tenderness that Sherlock has never seen there before. He understands at last how much John was shielding from him, and how blind he has been. Not blind – he saw the hints, the indications – but unable to believe it, and possibly for very good reasons. (Never mind.) 

He reaches for John, says his name again, and John’s face drops down to his, all of what’s on his face translating into Sherlock’s mouth, his tongue stroking against Sherlock’s in a way that makes Sherlock’s entire chest hurt in new and tremendously profound ways. He cannot touch John enough, his hands pulling John fully onto him, pressing into his back and rubbing down over his jean-clad arse. John is groaning and pressing into him, writhing against him, and it makes Sherlock harder than ever. He is gasping into John’s mouth, his own body moving in response. They kiss and kiss and John’s hand slots in between them to cup the heavy fullness at his crotch, the embarrassing, obvious protrusion of his desire. The touch makes him gasp all the harder, the kiss breaking off. “John – !”

John’s mouth is on his throat again, his hand still rubbing over him. “Is this okay?” he asks into Sherlock’s skin. “Can I touch you like this?” 

“Yes – I – ” Sherlock cannot seem to cushion his response in vagueness or half-pretences that he does not want this as badly as he does. On the contrary. “Please!” 

He is begging and this is decidedly poor as far as dignity is concerned, but he decides he does not care. “You okay like this, on the floor?” John murmurs, lifting his face to look down at him, his face the loveliest thing Sherlock has ever seen in his life. “We could move somewhere more comfortable…”

His fingers are still caressing him through the fabric of Sherlock’s now-damp trousers and Sherlock shakes his head vehemently. “Please don’t stop,” he says, horribly plainly, and John takes pity on him. 

“All right,” he says, smiling. His fingers twist at the button of Sherlock’s trousers and he gets the zip down past the straining bulge within. He slips his hand directly into Sherlock’s underwear, fingers wrapping around Sherlock’s erection and stroking it. Sherlock moans loudly, helpless to prevent himself, and John makes an approving sound and applies his mouth to Sherlock’s throat again. “You like that?” The question is hot against Sherlock’s skin, and he seems to understand the garbled sound Sherlock makes in response as an affirmative. John kisses his chest and nipples and throat, stroking him all the while, and it’s so good that Sherlock could combust. And yet it isn’t enough, either, because he wants to touch John, do something for him in return. 

“John – ” He is panting and can barely speak, but he must. “I want – take off – this – ” He pushes at the waistband of John’s jeans and has a second try at coherent speech. “I want to feel you – ”

John exhales hard. “God, yes!” He rolls off Sherlock for a moment, stripping off his jeans and underwear and socks as quickly as possible. Sherlock shimmies out of his own things and pushes them out of the way and turns on his side to look at John, take in the sight of him. 

John’s chest is flushed with arousal, rosy in the firelight, the golden hairs on his belly glinting in the light the way Sherlock thought they would. His eyes are drawn like magnets to John’s erection, to the physical proof of John’s desire for him. John is as hard as he is, wetness gleaming at the tip of an achingly full, straining erection lying flat-up against his lower belly. Sherlock’s hand goes to it. “Can I…?” he asks, though he’s already touching it. 

“Please,” John says immediately, his flesh twitching and jerking the moment Sherlock curls his fingers around it, responding to him as though having waited a lifetime for his touch alone. This is ridiculous, hopelessly romantic nonsense, but Sherlock decides he does not care about this, either. 

They move together, legs curled around one another’s bodies, hands pulling at each other, their mouths coming together again. It’s intoxicating, feeling all of it at once – John’s tongue on his, John’s body against his, John’s penis in his hand, his own in John’s. Their sounds are echoing each other’s, rising and accelerating, and then John rolls onto him and begins to thrust and this is better still. Sherlock’s hands have found their way to John’s arse, John looking directly into his eyes – into his soul, Sherlock thinks, unable to take his eyes from John’s, and he feels more naked and exposed than ever before, but John is there in it with him and it’s all right. It’s more than all right. Their skin is sliding together, sweaty and hot, erections wet, the scent of intimacy exuding from their bodies together. It feels so good that Sherlock is helpless to do anything other than thrust up against John, their thighs flexing against each other’s, stomachs contracting and expanding together. Sherlock’s breathing is ragged, panted against John’s mouth and cheek as pleasure winds tighter and tighter around him, gripping his testicles and aching in his penis. He isn’t sure whether he is supposed to wait for John to climax first or whether he even has any control over this, and as he thinks this, the pleasure suddenly coalesces and spikes fiercely through his body, bursting from his throat in a shout. His hands are wild as he grips John to himself and comes uncontrollably, the orgasm pulsing out of him in hot streams, wet against both their bodies and so intensely good – he is moaning and panting and he becomes dimly aware of John cursing against his jaw, his body clenching and jerking against him. There is hot breath on his neck and then John shudders against him, more wetness flooding between them as John thrusts against him hard through his own orgasm. 

He goes limp after a little, his penis going soft, lying warmly against Sherlock’s, which is still spasming and leaking, aftershocks trembling through his limbs. He feels as though he has died and come back to life again, reborn into his own flesh, baptised in the flames of his first sexual union with anyone. He knows in his mind that the notion of virginity is meaningless, yet this is far from meaningless to him. It could only ever have been John to claim this, to take him by the hand and lead him through the gate of fire, only John who held the keys to his body and soul both. 

John is panting into his shoulder, his back damp with sweat that Sherlock’s fingers are trailing through, and in that moment Sherlock feels as though he may finally be permitted to say it aloud, and he does. “I love you,” he says, his voice rasping slightly. 

A shudder ripples down John’s back and he raises his face and puts a hand on Sherlock’s again. His thumb strokes over Sherlock’s cheekbone. “I love you,” he says, his eyes so full of that same expression that it makes Sherlock’s chest ache all over again, and he lowers his mouth to Sherlock’s and kisses him for a very long time. It feels as though time has ceased to exist, that the outside world and everyone in it have faded away. There is only this, only them. Only this moment. Nothing else matters. 

*** 

After awhile, John releases him and peels himself away, looking at the mess they’ve made of themselves with slight chagrin. “Let me get a flannel,” he says. 

Sherlock does not want to be parted from him for even this long. “I’ll come with you,” he says, and John takes his hand and leads him to the bathroom. Inside, he watches John wet a flannel with half-wondering eyes. It feels unbelievable that this has happened. They are lovers now. No matter what else has happened or will happen, nothing can change this. John turns to him and Sherlock takes the flannel from him and cleans John’s skin with care, wiping his stomach and penis and testicles and taking the opportunity to observe them in their spent state. After, John takes the flannel back, rinses it and does the same thing for Sherlock, and they’re kissing again by the time it’s finished. 

“Sofa?” John asks against his mouth, and Sherlock nods. He doesn’t want to be the one to raise the subject of John’s departure, but it’s already on his mind. He cannot possibly bear for John to leave now. Not so soon after that, especially if it will never happen again (terrible thought, dismiss). 

He allows John to arrange them so that he is sitting between John’s legs, leaning back against him. John’s arms are around him, Sherlock’s head tipped back against his shoulder, the blanket from the back of John’s chair spread loosely over his middle, though the room is warm from the fire. He finds John’s hands and twines his fingers into each of them so that as much of him as possible is touching as much of John as possible. Sherlock closes his eyes, but not from fatigue, instead revelling in the glorious intimacy of it. 

John seems to feel the same way about this. “I feel like a starving man at a banquet,” he says into Sherlock’s ear, catching it between his lips. “God, Sherlock – if only we had worked it out a lot sooner.” 

“Does that mean that you never would have guessed if you hadn’t read my notebook?” Sherlock asks, his thumbs stroking John’s hands. 

“I guess part of me wondered,” John admits. “I never would have known for sure, though. Sherlock – I can’t even tell you how special that notebook is to me, how much it means, the things you wrote. All of those unfinished letters, the things you were thinking, especially while you were away. All this time I thought you were off having some fabulous adventure without me, and really you were missing me as much as I was missing you. Those letters, though – the one about the couple by the fountain, and there was another one you wrote from Moscow, I think, or on your way there. You were on a train, and sort of rambling about our life here before you left, but there was one line where you just said something about how much you wished you were still here with me. God – I just – reading that, I just felt stunned. I really never knew, Sherlock. And then the last one, where you finally said it, that you loved me, and goodbye – ” He stops. “I called Mycroft, you know.” 

Sherlock is startled. “You did?” he asks, craning his head back to look at John. “Why?” 

“I asked him, straight to the point, what would have happened to you in Serbia,” John tells him, his voice sober. “I made him admit that it was a suicide mission. I honestly just thought you were being dramatic on the tarmac. Off to have another adventure without me, since I was hampered with a wife and child, anyway. I couldn’t work out why you’d actually shot Magnussen, why you’d been so stupid, thrown your life away like that. I didn’t get it – _really_ get it – until the crime scene yesterday. What you said about people doing stupid things for the people they love. I think that’s when it really hit me, everything you gave up and why. That you did all that for me, just so that I could try to make a go of things with Mary and that whole life. That’s when I knew for a fact that I don’t even want that. Not at all. I want this, but I can’t have this. We can’t have this. It’s my fault and I’m so bloody sorry, Sherlock. I wish I could change things.” 

Sherlock absorbs all of this for a moment. His brain is struggling to find some moral loophole that would allow John out of this, but he understands perfectly well that if there was one, he would have found it by now. “I know,” he says. He tightens his fingers in John’s. “This feels like some unbelievable paradise,” he says, knowing that the words sound stupid. “This is all I want. I would give up anything to have this. The work. This house. Anyone and anything.” 

John presses his face into Sherlock’s messy hair and kisses his head. “I would if I could, too. I mean that. I meant it when I said that I love you. I do. I hope you know that, whatever happens after this.” 

Sherlock turns this over in his head for a few minutes. “What are you going to tell Mary about tonight?” he asks quietly. 

He feels John’s shrug. “That it was a case, I guess.” 

Sherlock tips his head back to look at John again. “Will you spend the night here?” He feels John’s hesitation in his inhalation, his breath stopping as he searches for an answer. “Please,” he adds. “I want to sleep with you. I need to know what it feels like to wake up with you. To have you in my bed.” 

John exhales shakily. “God, yes,” he says, and Sherlock twists himself around to face him. The kiss is hard on both sides, opening deeply to one another, and after a little while, Sherlock feels himself beginning to harden again. He shifts, getting closer still, the blanket slithering off his legs to the floor as they kiss. John breaks away after a little, breathing hard. “Is Mrs Hudson home?” he asks. “We made rather a lot of noise before – I’m just wondering if we need to worry about being interrupted or something.” 

Sherlock shakes his head. “I think she’s in Devonshire.” 

John smiles up at him. “Good,” he says simply. He could add that the fewer people who know about this, the better, but doesn’t. Instead he says, “Then let’s go to your bedroom.” 

*** 

They curl around each other beneath the blankets, hands touching and stroking and exploring as they kiss, and Sherlock is in utter bliss. He feels less constrained this time, freer to allow himself to echo the same sounds John is making, their bodies twined together, seeking pleasure jointly, ready to wring it from one another and themselves at the same time. John allows him to touch and taste without limit, letting him catalogue his myriad reactions to Sherlock’s hands and mouth on his skin, be it a breathy laugh or interested sound or heartfelt moan – the deepest of these coming when Sherlock fits the head of his penis into his mouth and sucks. The explorations get caught up as Sherlock gets distracted by this, his fingers probing into the soft hair of John’s testicles as he licks and sucks and takes in every minute reaction John makes. John’s fingers stroke his hair and then curl into it tightly for a moment before making himself let go, but Sherlock lifts off only long enough to say, “No, do it, I like it – ” before plunging his mouth down over John’s length again. He surprises himself at his own ability to handle John’s erection sliding into his throat and blocking his breath momentarily, almost too deeply to taste it when he comes, hips jutting up off the mattress in the moment of his climax. Apologies spill from his mouth after, and Sherlock brushes them all aside. His throat is a little sore but it’s barely tangible in light of the heavy desire swimming around his head and weighing down his genitals once again. 

John turns him over and kisses his way down Sherlock’s chest before taking him into his mouth, and the shock of pleasure nearly undoes Sherlock on the spot. He’s never felt anything as intense or as intimate as this, and the sight of it, of John’s beautiful, perfectly shaped mouth around him this way is almost more than he can take. John draws it out, manages to spin out the most intense, taut moment of tension for as long as possible before finally bringing Sherlock to a peak so exquisitely pleasurable it’s nearly painful, his fist jerking hard and fast over Sherlock’s erection, his tongue massaging the head of his penis as it erupts violently into John’s mouth. He must have lost consciousness for a brief moment, because the next thing he knows, John has crawled back up over him and is kissing his face and neck as hungrily as he was earlier, even now that the moment of need has passed. Sherlock’s chest is heaving, his forehead gleaming with sweat. He takes John’s face with both hands and kisses him as deeply as he knows how, tasting himself in John’s mouth. 

He does not know how long it goes before they eventually drift into sleep, still wrapped around one another. The idea that John will leave in the morning and resume his other life is unfathomable. He means to say something about this, but sleep washes over him before he can, and besides which, John’s limbs are heavy with sleep, his weight achingly satisfying where it’s spread over his body, and Sherlock realises that he wouldn’t say anything to break this perfect moment, anyway. 

They sleep, waking every few hours already touching and pressing together again. It feels like the ultimate indulgence, getting to do this with John, half-awake and half-dreaming, revelling in him, in their intimacy, the exquisite sense of absolute belonging that he has craved with every cell of his being for years. The third time they wake must be dawn; the sky is growing light outside the window as they roll over and over in the bed, the sheets tangling around their legs and getting kicked away as they push and thrust and cling to one another, breath heavy and hard, reaching yet another peak together. Their skin is sticky and marked by their mouths and hands and they are as close to one another as two people can be, still panting even as sleep steals over them again. John tugs the blankets back over them, reinstates his arms around Sherlock’s back, and they sleep again. 

*** 

When they finally wake in the late morning, it’s cloudy. Sherlock is momentarily disappointed not to have the chance to live out his small, private fantasy of waking up in the sunlight with John, but then, clouds are more appropriate if John is really going to leave this behind today. That was the understanding; he cannot fight it. Nonetheless, waking with John is still incredible. They are twisted around each other, Sherlock’s limbs cramping and half-asleep, pins and needles prickling in his left forearm, but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t make anything about the experience less profound. 

“Good morning,” John says, smiling at him when he sees that Sherlock is awake. 

“Hello,” Sherlock says in return, and reaches for John’s face and mouth. They kiss for a long time, just holding each other and not trying to make it anything else. Sherlock still feels sated from – was it five rounds? he counts mentally – and is trying not to think about John leaving. He knows that he cannot contest it, ask for anything but what John promised: one night. One night to be together they way they always should have been. He has responsibilities he has tied himself to now, and he cannot turn his back on them and remain John Watson. They both know this. 

After a long while, they break apart and lie facing each other on their sides. John’s face is very serious, his hand on Sherlock’s cheek. “I love you,” he says again. “Never forget that. Promise me that you won’t.” 

“I won’t,” Sherlock vows, his voice low. “I’m not asking you to change your mind. I’m not.” 

“I know,” John says, his voice tight. He blinks a few times, swallowing. “God, Sherlock… ”

He doesn’t say any of it, and Sherlock does not make him. His chest is burning. Instead, at last, he says, “You can’t go back to Mary in this condition. Come and have a shower before you go, at least.” 

John swallows again, and nods. “Yeah. Okay.” 

They get out of bed and go into the bathroom together. Sherlock turns on the taps and gets out towels and John relieves himself without seeming to feel any need for privacy from him about this. It pleases Sherlock somehow, that John considers him familiar enough for this already. It feels very much as though they belong to one another absolutely. It seems unfathomable that John could have ever been with anyone else before him. That he managed to impregnate Mary – that he will inevitably be with her that way again at some point in the future. It’s a thought that puts knots in his stomach, because John clearly belongs, without question, to him, as he belongs to John. They wash each other in the shower without speaking much, facing each other in the water. Their hands caress one another and Sherlock uses the rich foam of his body wash to give John another orgasm as John does the same for him, water getting into their mouths as they kiss and kiss, washing the evidence of their coupling from each other’s bodies. There are a few marks on John’s skin from his mouth and teeth but John tells him that it isn’t a problem. 

Afterward they dress themselves and each other, then John goes into the sitting room to collect his clothes and put them on. Sherlock pulls on a pair of underwear and a dressing gown and comes to stand in the sitting room, watching John. John puts his shoes and coat on, then comes over, puts his arms around Sherlock, and kisses him for a long time. When he finally releases Sherlock, John takes his face in both hands and says, his voice intense, “I will never forget this, Sherlock. Never. This is the very best thing that’s ever happened to me. I mean that.” 

Sherlock swallows. “Me too,” he says. This is so incredibly difficult, so painful. He cannot let John go, yet the fact of John’s leaving is inexorable. “I love you,” he says again. 

John puts his arms around him again and holds him tightly. “I know,” he says, his voice as tight as his arms. “I love you, too.” They hug for several long minutes and then John speaks again, his face hidden. “Do you still have the notebook?” 

“Yes,” Sherlock says, his face in John’s hair. “Why?” 

“I would ask you if I could have it, but I think it should stay with you, for obvious reasons,” John says. “But please don’t get rid of it. Okay?” 

“Never,” Sherlock promises. He draws back a little. Better to just get this over with. “You should go,” he says, though it’s the last thing he wants to say. 

“I know.” John pulls back and kisses him again, just a long, sweet (bittersweet) press of his lips to Sherlock’s, and then he lets go. He makes for the stairs and leaves without saying anything else. No goodbyes. 

Sherlock goes to the window, shivering and cold in his bare feet, and watches John walk away, wondering if he will ever see him again. 

*** 

Three days pass. The third day is Mary’s official due date, and although Sherlock is well aware that these things are approximate, he nonetheless spends the day twitching and jumping every time his phone shows a notification of some sort. He spends all of the first day inside the flat, curled in on himself and trying to remember every single moment with John, every single touch, every sound John made, the smell and taste and feel of every part of him. He could never forget any of it if he wanted to, and he does not want to. If that was to be the only time in his life to experience these things with John, then he will simply store these memories in his vault and come back to revisit them again and again until they have grown boring. 

And yet Sherlock feels empty. Everything of value to him walked out of the flat with John. He feels like a shell of himself. He examines every miniscule mark left on his skin from John’s touch and resents it as they start to fade. The second day, he showers and goes out, walking aimlessly through Westminster for hours, trying to avoid thinking of John, entirely without success. John is with him at all times, his presence tattooed into Sherlock’s skin, his cells, his DNA. He buys groceries and cleans the kitchen and bathroom, does laundry. Anything to occupy his mind. The third day, he is at home and tortures himself over thoughts of Mary giving birth, John falling instantly in love with his new child. All wistful thoughts of the could-have-beens with them fading away, his reluctance to stay in his new life evaporating at the sound of his child’s voice. Mary, tired but beaming with their child in her arms. Forgiveness welling in John’s heart – or at least, the need for true forgiveness sliding into the sands of the past as their bond is reforged, bound by their daughter. 

He feels sick. It’s a relief, therefore, when Lestrade phones around one. He answers at once. “Lestrade.” He was afraid it was John, calling to tell him. 

“Got a grim one for you,” Lestrade says, skipping preamble. “A woman was murdered and her heart was carved out, hopefully post-mortem, but we don’t know yet. Found in private home by the neighbour, the body laid out in the bedroom. Can you come? Need John on this one, definitely.” 

“I’ll try him,” Sherlock says, his heart racing at the very mention of John, and marvels at how calmly his voice comes out. “No guarantees. I’ll let you know.” 

“Great. I’ll text you the address,” Lestrade says, and disconnects. 

Sherlock takes a deep breath and attempts to regulate his pulse. If John is not at some hospital with Mary, perhaps he will come. Perhaps he will see him again. He types as quickly as his fingers will permit him. _There’s been a murder. Can you come?_ He hesitates, wondering if he should say something more. Will John think him cold if he says only this? Or worse, will John think he’s crossing a line if he says something more? Better not risk it. He presses send and goes to put his coat on, willing himself not to look at the screen. His nervous system feels so hyperactive that he thinks it must be glowing through his skin, like the exoskeleton of an insect. 

His phone beeps and he snatches it out of his coat pocket as he clatters down the stairs to the street. It’s John. _Sure, the clinic’s slow today. Where is it? I’ll get a cab._

Sherlock’s heart soars. He thrusts his hand into the air for a taxi and when it slows, he launches himself inside, gives the address, texting it to John at the same time. He arrives first. It’s a small, grotty house on Jowett Street in Peckham. A dying willow tree sags over the front garden, which is all pavement and not a single other sign of life. He finds Lestrade in the kitchen, where he is giving instructions about interviewing neighbours. 

“And you,” he says, jabbing a finger at someone whose name Sherlock has not bothered to learn. “Get into that park across the street and see what you can find. Anything that would give us a lead on who this woman even is.” 

“No ID?” Sherlock asks from the doorway, and the officers all turn to look at home. 

“You have your instructions,” Lestrade tells them, and they scatter. He turns to Sherlock. “Not so far,” he says. “Donovan got a print from the light switch and she’s running it out in the cruiser to see if it matches the body. Is John coming?” 

“Right here,” John says, closing the front door behind him. Sherlock turns around, his heart in his throat, and their eyes meet for a long moment. John swallows visibly. “Er, where’s the body?” he asks, shifting his gaze to Lestrade at last. 

“In here,” Lestrade says, not noticing anything. He shows them to the back bedroom where a woman’s body has been neatly laid out, clothed except where a hole has been cut – cleanly, Sherlock observes – directly through her blouse, showing a hole beneath where the heart once was. 

“Good God,” John says softly, and Sherlock wants to go to him. He restrains himself with difficulty. “Who was she?” 

“We don’t know yet,” Lestrade tells him. “Any initial thoughts?” 

“Yeah, the cutting was definitely done post-mortem,” John says. “The lack of blood suggests that. How long after is the question.” He looks at Sherlock, who silently hands him a pair of gloves. John gives him a glimmer of a smile and snaps them on, going over to pick up the left hand. He examines it, sniffs it, then lays it down again. “Formaldehyde,” he says. “The body was preserved. You’ll need to run a full autopsy. We can do some of the ground work here but you’ll need to check the liver for a time of death, test the skin to see how long it was preserved and all that.” 

“The cutting looks professional,” Sherlock observes, and John nods approvingly. 

“Yes, quite right,” he says. “I would say this was done with a surgical saw rather than a knife.”

“Are we looking for a doctor, then?” Lestrade asks. 

“Not necessarily,” John tells him. “Butchers use those, too, as well as morticians. Whose house is this?” 

“Also unknown,” Lestrade says, grimacing. “We only just got started.” 

Sherlock is still looking at John. Their eyes meet. “Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “It looks as though we’ve got our work cut out for us.” It occurs to him that he just made a rather terrible pun, considering the murder, but no one remarks upon it. 

“Right. I’ll start going through the sitting room and whatever I can find out there,” Lestrade says. “You two can start in here until the coroner comes.” 

“We can help him bag up the parts,” John confirms, and Lestrade goes. 

They are alone. Alone but for a butchered corpse, that is, on the day that John’s child was to be born. Not an ideal reunion, perhaps, but at least they are in the same room, Sherlock thinks. He offers John half a smile. “Not how you imagined your day was going to go, I’d wager,” he says. 

John smiles but doesn’t meet his eyes. “Possibly not,” he agrees. He crouches down next to the body and clears his throat. “Er – probably best if we focus on the case,” he says. He glances up when Sherlock doesn’t answer. “It’s not – it’s all fine, Sherlock, but – you know. You’ll want to get this solved, and…”

“Yes. I know,” Sherlock says, trying to keep from sounding stiff. He goes to the far side of the bed and puts on a pair of gloves. “I’m just glad you came.” 

“Of course,” John says, speaking to the body. “And – the first time after – was always going to be, er… yeah.” Their eyes meet briefly and John swallows again. “It’s not easy for me, either,” he says quietly. “To put it lightly.” He clears his throat again. “Any observations of a non-medical nature?” 

Sherlock makes a herculean effort to focus on the body. It takes a moment to wrest his brain onto the topic at hand, but then it responds and he begins to rattle off random observations without paying any attention to what he is saying. All his eyes are really seeing is John. It’s like torture and yet he wouldn’t give away a second of this precious time with him. (Ridiculous. Pathetic. Yet nonetheless undeniably true.) Sherlock closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them and carries on with his deduction. 

*** 

They work through the afternoon with Lestrade and Donovan and the nameless one who was sent to the park, Sherlock endeavouring to ignore the omnipresent tension between himself and John. The house belongs to a Paul Havistock, and once that’s known, the pieces fall into place rather quickly. Lestrade honestly didn’t need him; he’s getting lazy. It’s completely typical: there was an affair between the deceased, Elaine Havistock, and someone known only as Robert thus far. Sherlock crossly instructs Lestrade to search all of Elaine’s correspondence and social media for any Roberts and work from there. 

“Yeah, I know the drill,” Lestrade replies mildly. “Well, I suppose it never hurts to have the reminder not to cheat, right?” 

He grins, obviously intending it as a joke, but Sherlock sees John’s jaw tighten, his lips pursing a little, head angled toward the carpet. The atmosphere becomes instantly uncomfortable and Sherlock wants to drive his fist into Lestrade’s unsuspecting belly for the stupid words. He should know better, considering both his own ex-wives’ proclivities. 

After a moment, Lestrade clears his throat. “All right – er, I’m going to check Elaine’s facebook page and that.” 

Sherlock glances at John. John avoids making eye contact with either of them and jerks a thumb in the direction of the bedroom. “I’m, er, going to see where the forensics team is with the bedroom.” 

He goes without waiting for either of them to respond. Sherlock sees Lestrade’s head turn sharply toward him in his peripheral vision and hears the question in his mind before Lestrade asks it aloud. “What was _that_?” he wants to know. “I didn’t mean to put my foot in it. Is John, er, having an affair or something?” 

Sherlock’s lips tighten a little. He’s absurdly insulted by the notion that Lestrade didn’t automatically assume that it could be him. “You’d have to ask him,” he mutters. “I’m going to – ” he nods in the direction of the bedroom and goes. He needs to be near John, to observe him, assess his state of wellbeing, but also for his own sake. He wants for Lestrade’s words to not have driven a wedge between them in addition to the strange dynamic already there between them. Who is Lestrade to make jokes about infidelity, anyway, after what his first wife did to him? Then again, there was also his brief and ill-advised fling with Donovan during his second marriage, too. But this is no joke. Sherlock goes into the bedroom to find John leaning against one of the walls, watching the forensics team work, his gaze unfocused. His head doesn’t turn but Sherlock can see John’s awareness of his presence plainly. He goes over and stands beside him, not too close, and pretends that he cares about what the forensics idiots are processing. The team is talking, but Sherlock is aware only of the silence between himself and John. Neither of them says anything about what Lestrade just said. 

After a little, John speaks, with what sounds like a bit of effort. “Two questions for us,” he says, and Sherlock isn’t certain whether he’s talking about the case or them. 

He turns his head just a little. “Yes?” A burst of nervous adrenaline pools his nervous system. 

“Where is her heart?” John’s eyes are on the bed where the rest of Elaine Havistock’s body was placed, removed hours ago by the coroner. “We know where the rest of her body is, so the first question is, what did the killer do with her heart?” 

Sherlock feels simultaneously relieved and disappointed that they’re only discussing the case. “The second question, of course, is where the killer is.” 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” John asks. 

Sherlock turns his head properly now and their eyes meet. “Find the heart, find the killer,” he says, and John nods, his beautiful face sober. (Sherlock longs to put his arms around him, tell John that he cannot do this, cannot live with only this.) 

“Exactly,” John says, and for a moment Sherlock wonders if John has read his thoughts, but he’s still talking about the case. “The killer could have planted it somewhere. You know you’re always saying that killers want to get caught.”

“Especially when it’s revenge,” Sherlock agrees. “The third question is, who killed her? The husband or the lover?” 

“Let’s start with the heart,” John says. “Let’s see if we can get our hands on her mobile. There could be text messages, a dating app. Something like that.” 

“Brilliant thinking,” Sherlock says, and John almost winces. 

He looks away and shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says, not explaining it. He swallows. “Er, let’s go.” 

*** 

John is right, of course. Text messages have given them the first conversations between Elaine and her lover, Robert K, whoever he is, and now they’re getting out of a cab and walking into a dimly-lit pub. Sherlock glances around and wonders why Robert K thought this place a good place to meet for a first clandestine sort of rendezvous. The texts suggest that they already knew one another well. He has Lestrade looking into work colleagues and old friends. The texts began six months ago. It’s serious, then. Sherlock observes that the bar is not very full for half-past eleven. Perhaps that was why they chose it. He goes to the bar and strikes up a conversation with the bartender, showing a photo of Elaine. This gives them a physical description of Robert, and the bartender adds, “Sometimes they’d go out the back way. Not sure why, but I remember thinking it was a bit odd.” 

Sherlock thanks him. “That door there?” he asks, pointing, and this gets a confirmation. He leads the way outside. The alley is paved, weeds sprouting up against the dingy red brick of the pub. Not a charming place. Sherlock turns on the lamp on his phone and points it at the ground. It takes a few minutes, but then he spots it: a few rust-coloured droplets on the pavement. He points at it and John makes a sound of comprehension. They follow the trail to a patch of wildflowers at the entrance to a small alcove. At the base of the flowers he sees it. Silently he crouches down and pulls on a pair of gloves, prodding it. The heart has been hacked into precise pieces, almost cubed, then reformed into its original shape, more or less. “Poetic,” he says at last, breaking the silence. “Either the husband or the lover brought her heart back to where the affair began, and hacked it into pieces.” 

“Is this what it feels like I’m doing to you?” John asks, the question strained. 

Sherlock looks up at him, startled and forgetting about the heart. “What?” 

John’s voice is tight and he gestures at the heart with an angry hand. “You know what I mean. This. Us. Me not…” He stops talking, the words trailing off and hanging there in the cold air between them. 

Sherlock doesn’t know what to say. He stands up but that only increases the feeling of tension between them, somehow. He feels helpless. “John…”

“Never mind,” John says, not quite sharply but it’s close. “There’s no point even talking about it when I’m the one who – I shouldn’t have brought it up. Never mind. We should get that back to the house. I’ll go in and see if they’ve got a clean bag or something.” 

He goes, shouldering his way back into the pub, leaving Sherlock alone with what is literally a broken heart. He looks down at it, his thoughts darkening. It _is_ an apt metaphor, isn’t it. Rather too apt. 

*** 

At the house the tension is no less thick between them. Sherlock doesn’t know whether the tense set of John’s jaw is anger (with him?) or frustration or what, precisely, but it makes him uncomfortable. They are sitting at the kitchen table with forensic pincers, carefully pulling apart the partially-frozen pieces of Elaine Havistock’s heart to examine it. Not surgically, only forensically. Just in case the killer left a clue. The tissues grow more difficult to work with as they thaw, clinging to one another and oozing blood. It becomes messy and slows their progress, but then John’s pincers make a metallic sound. 

Sherlock looks up. “What was that?” 

“Not sure.” John digs a little, then grasps a piece of metal, a round disc which he carefully pulls free of the heart tissue. 

“What is it?” Sherlock asks, his interest in the case pricking again. 

“Let me give it a rinse,” John says, already getting up to carry it to the sink. He runs the warm water, makes a thoughtful/interested sound, and comes back to show it to Sherlock. “Look,” he says. “It’s from a man’s neck chain or something. Look at what it says.” 

He angles it so that Sherlock can see it. “ _P. H._ ,” Sherlock says softly. “Paul Havistock. The husband.” 

“Found out about the affair, was crushed, killed his wife, cut out her heart, and inserted his initials into it post-mortem?” John shakes his head. “You’re right, though. People do crazy things over love.” 

His voice is heavy and Sherlock attempts a bit of levity. “It’s almost poetic,” he offers, but John doesn’t smile. Or agree. 

“Would you find it poetic if Mary cuts my heart out, if she finds out what I did?” he asks shortly. Before Sherlock can answer, he makes as though to bury his face in his hands but stops short, remembering his blood-spattered gloves, bowing his head instead. 

“No – of course not,” Sherlock says, feeling more helpless still and hating that he’s made John feel this way. “Of _course_ not.” 

John’s breath comes out through his nose and he shakes his head. “Sher – I can’t – ” He wrenches himself out of his chair, peeling off the gloves and putting them into the bin under the sink. He turns on the water and begins to wash his hands vigorously. 

Sherlock watches him and asks himself furiously what to do about this, how to help rather than make it worse. But John is correct – the heart lying in pieces on the table feels like his own. He gets up and strips off his own gloves, leaving them inside-out on the table, and goes to join John at the sink. He knows that he shouldn’t stand so close, but he’s so hungry for John’s proximity. If John is uncomfortable, he can surely move. John silently takes his hands out of the stream to allow him to wash, too, adding more soap and waiting for Sherlock to move his hands out of the way. Sherlock thinks of when they showered together and that it’s ridiculous to be this polite with a person he has been as intimate with as he has with John. “I haven’t asked,” he says quietly. “And I wouldn’t. You gave exactly what you said you could. I accepted that then. But – ” He stops himself. Perhaps it would be too much to say it, even if he has made it clear that he expects nothing further from John, that he understands that it cannot continue. Perhaps saying it would sound like a pressure. 

John takes his hands out of the water but doesn’t move away, and Sherlock can feel every place where their arms are brushing together. “But what?” 

The words seem to shatter some invisible barrier between them. Sherlock turns his head, looks steadily into John’s eyes for a long moment, then allows himself to say something he only would have said in writing before, something hopelessly, ludicrously sentimental. “But if you cut open my heart, I believe you would find your initials there, engraved on the tissue itself.” 

John’s face changes. “Sherlock – ” His name chokes itself out of John’s throat and the next thing he knows, John is seizing him by the shoulders, his hands still dripping wet. The kiss is hard and Sherlock does not try to resist it. He could not if he wanted to, and he does not want to. His arms get themselves around John’s back and over one shoulder beyond his volition and he kisses back fiercely, hunger for it burning in his gut. Their tongues and teeth and lips are all clashing, their fronts pressed together, and it feels like an oasis after having been dying of thirst in a desert. There is considerable desperation on both sides, as well as frustration, driving need, but also relief – relief that John wasn’t somehow angry with him, relief that he does still want this. Relief that it’s happening again. John’s arms are around him again and Sherlock feels so much that he thinks he could come apart at the seams. 

“How are you two getting on with that – oh, holy shit!” Lestrade’s voice breaks into everything like a douse of cold water and John releases him abruptly. 

He turns away toward the sink and turns off the water, simultaneously scrubbing the back of a hand over his mouth and Sherlock is left to stutter out a response to the interruption. “Lestrade,” he says jerkily. “I – it’s – ”

Lestrade is staring at them, his mouth open, and makes no move to fill in Sherlock’s unfinished sentence. Finally he lets out his breath and says, “Jesus. I had no idea. That – er, explains some things.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Listen, it’s none of my business, and I’m not going to – yeah. Er, I just wondered where things were with the heart. I was always going to tell you two that it’s after one and to go home, or, er, wherever. We can keep working in the morning.” 

“Actually, we can’t,” John says. Sherlock glances at him and sees the crimson stain on his cheeks, the tense lines around his mouth. He’s embarrassed but steadfastly still working on the case. He nods at the disc on the kitchen table. “That disc was planted inside the victim’s heart. It’s the husband’s initials. He’s your killer.” 

Lestrade’s eyebrows lift. “Really! We’ve been looking for the boyfriend! As it happens, we just got a location on Paul Havistock – he’s staying with a brother in Kent. Shouldn’t be too hard to bring him in. We’ll take care of it. You two get some rest, it’s late.” 

“What about the lover?” Sherlock asks. When Lestrade looks confused, he says, “The lover: if Paul Havistock took the news of the affair badly enough to have killed his wife, cut out her heart and cut it to pieces, surely the lover could also be in danger. I wouldn’t stop looking for him just yet.” 

“We can’t protect him if we can’t find him, but yes, I’ll keep my people on it,” Lestrade promises. “If I need your help, I’ll let you know. As ever, you’ve done all the heavy lifting on this one already. Go home.” 

Sherlock looks briefly at John again, then says, “All right.” He goes to his suit jacket and puts it on, noting in passing that the sleeves of his shirt are still wet from John’s hands. The coat is next. He goes outside, John following him like a shadow. Wordlessly they fall into step together and begin walking toward the main road. Sherlock has no idea what John is thinking and does not know how to ask, but the tension feels easier than it did before they kissed.

At the end of the street, Sherlock goes to turn left toward the main road, but before he can, John takes his hand and leads him silently into the dimly-lit little park to the right. It’s deserted, which in this neighbourhood can only be a good thing. John walks until they’re out of the streetlights, then turns to face him. Without saying a word, he pulls Sherlock into his arms, his face extremely serious, and kisses him. Sherlock puts his arms around John’s shoulders and kisses back. It feels like guiltily giving in to an addiction. It feels like pleasure and uneasiness and caution and giddy relief all at once. He kisses John with abandon, with technique taken from John’s very lips. His hands end up on John’s face, cupping it, his thumbs caressing John’s cheekbones. When they break apart many minutes later, they’re both breathing deeply and Sherlock leans his forehead against John’s, still holding his face. For a long moment they just stand there, holding one another and knowing that they shouldn’t be. Sherlock thinks that it doesn’t matter that they’re in some dodgy needle park in Peckham. They could be in the middle of the Taj Mahal or on centre stage at the National Theatre. It doesn’t matter. 

John’s arms haven’t gone anywhere. “I can’t not do this,” he says, his voice pained. “I – it hurts, Sh – It would be one thing if I were only putting myself into this situation, but doing this to you, too – ”

Sherlock lifts his face and puts his lips to John’s forehead, pressing them to his skin again, then again. “You’re doing what you feel is right,” he says, though the words carve a hole in him and leave him feeling desolate. How can he possibly give comfort when he needs it as badly as John does? “You’ll feel differently when the – when your child is born. It will help you feel… more drawn to that life.” 

“Will it?” John sounds bleak. “Right now, all I know is that I want this. You.”

“You’ll always have me,” Sherlock says. It feels as though every nerve is exposed, the words humbly barren and stark. 

“But not the way I want. Never that way.” John looks into his eyes, his mouth set unhappily, and Sherlock wants to kiss the corners of his mouth where they tuck in, the lines between John’s eyes, the other framing his small, perfect mouth, feel the tension dissolve under his lips and tongue, feel John relax into it. 

He hesitates. The temptation to ask John to come back to Baker Street with him is enormous, and yet some stern inner voice that might have something to do with his conscience is forbidding it. “You should go home,” he says, as gently as possible, and feels that the words may shatter him. “We should both go home. And not together.” 

John makes a pained sound and Sherlock wants to give him something, do something for him that would make him stop feeling the way that sound indicates. “I know,” John says tightly. He nods, his eyes closed. “I do know that. If I came back with you now… I don’t think I could make myself leave, and then where would we all be? It would be such a mess, and with the baby…”

Sherlock does not say that people with children get divorced all the time. Obviously John knows this. There is therefore some reason that he feels he needs to stay with Mary. Duty, perhaps. A lingering fondness. His sworn word. Yes, very possibly. Love, though? He devoutly hopes not. Either way, there is no need to suggest the obvious, unless to pressure John to choose him, and he has already made the decision – long ago, in fact – to let John have what it is that he really wants. Or has chosen, at least. If John wants to leave Mary, he can, and he knows that. “You’ll fall in love with your child the moment you see her,” he says, the words catching in his throat and nearly choking him. “It will change everything. Or so I am told is generally the case.” 

“Stop,” John says, his eyes still closed, forehead knit with pain. “Why do you have to be so selfless and logical about it? Why are you trying to comfort me? I want – I want you to be as torn up about it as I am, damn it!” 

Sherlock’s chest gives a fierce stab. “I am,” he says, his voice hollow. “It’s not selflessness, John. It’s self-preservation. I couldn’t cope if you told me that I could have you and then changed your mind. We both know what you have to do. There’s a child. That changes everything. We both know you would never leave your own child behind.” He omits Mary completely, and John doesn’t mention her, either. 

Instead John puts his arms around Sherlock’s middle and leans his cheek into Sherlock’s. “I hate that I got us into this,” he says. “I hate that we could have had this.”

“I contributed,” Sherlock reminds him, closing his eyes, his arms around John’s shoulders. “You know that.”

“Let’s not talk about it,” John says, his throat still sounding tight. “Just – kiss me again, would you?” 

Sherlock bends his head at once, not bothering to waste time on words. The kiss is long and deep and full of unhappiness even as it feels like guilt-ridden indulgence again. He does not know when he will see John again, or what will have changed in the mean time. It does not seem as though this will change, but one never knows. The kiss draws to a close, punctuated by a few more shorter ones, and then John releases him. In wordless understanding, they walk hand-in-hand back to the street. Once they’ve reached the main road, John lets go of his hand as they watch for taxis to come by. It’s after two in the morning, but eventually one comes. They share it, Sherlock directing the driver to Baker Street. The ride is silent, both of them lost in their own thoughts, and when they arrive, Sherlock looks at John. He wants very badly to kiss him again, but also knows that doing so would be to silently invite John up, and he must not do this. For John’s sake. And for his own. So, after a moment of intense eye contact, he forces himself to say, “Good night.” Then he passes the driver a fifty-pound note over the seat and makes himself get out. 

He stands on the kerb and watches it drive away, John looking back over his shoulder at him. Sherlock watches until the road curves and the car and John disappear from view. 

*** 

Lestrade calls in the early afternoon while Sherlock is still asleep. He staggered into the bedroom the previous night, fell into bed with most of his clothes still on and slept like the dead. The phone manages to penetrate his sleep-fogged brain and he fumbles for it, sees Lestrade’s name. A jab of his thumb makes the sound stop. “Hello?” His voice is scratchy. 

“Oh sorry, did I wake you?” Lestrade does not sound particularly penitent. 

Sherlock rubs his eyes. “It’s fine. What’s going on?” 

“Just wanted to let you know that we got the husband. He’s in custody and it looks like a confession is going to be easy enough. We also found the lover and he’s fine. Thanks again for everything.” 

Sherlock waits for some feeling of satisfaction about the successful conclusion to the case, but he there is nothing. “That’s good,” he says automatically. “You’re welcome.” 

Lestrade hesitates, and Sherlock feels instinctively that he knows what the pause is about. “Er, about last night in the kitchen there,” he begins, sounding awkward, and trails off as if to let Sherlock jump into the gap and explain. _Oh yes, about that! John and I aren’t really having an affair. Well, he cheated once and we kissed a bit yesterday, too, but it’s nothing, honestly. Forget about it._

Sherlock does not say any of this. He adjusts the position of the phone. “What about it.” He sounds stiff and uninviting. It can’t be helped. Lestrade is a friend – a good one – but some things are too personal. Sherlock thinks of the park the previous night and amends: too painful. 

Lestrade’s awkwardness is legion. “Er, has that been… going on for awhile, or…?”

Sherlock closes his eyes in frustration and tries not to sigh audibly into the phone. “No,” he says, the word dull. “It’s not really… going on, per se. It’s over, whatever it was.” 

“Really.” Lestrade is not buying it. “It didn’t look all that ‘over’ to me. It looked like it was pretty definitely happening, if you want to know.” 

“I don’t recall having asked your opinion,” Sherlock says, with irritation. 

“Don’t get snippy on me,” Lestrade admonishes. “I’m only asking as a friend. I can’t imagine it’s been easy, if you’ve felt that way, and him with Mary and the baby and all.” 

Mary. The very name kindles the same, carefully-buried spark of outrage and fury. Sherlock suddenly decides that he’s finished keeping this particular secret from Lestrade. “Mary shot me,” he says flatly, point-blank. Lestrade has wanted to know who was behind the shot for months and Sherlock has steadfastly refused to tell him. “That’s who it was.” 

There is a moment of silence on the other end, then, “ _What?!_ ” Lestrade is aghast. “ _Mary_ shot you? What the bloody hell!” He stops, apparently trying to gather his thoughts. " _Why?!_ ” 

“It’s a long story,” Sherlock says. “She was trying to keep John from knowing her past and I got in the way. That’s why he insisted I stay at Baker Street rather than the hospital, why he stayed with me. Now you know.”

“So – why on earth would he have gone back to her, then?” Lestrade demands. “Don’t tell me he forgave her!” 

Sherlock does sigh now. “There’s a child,” he points out. “And you know who John Watson is. You know as well as I do that he would never leave his own child behind.” 

This time Lestrade’s silence is eloquent and immediately understanding. “I see,” he says, sounding as though he genuinely does. “God, I’m sorry, Sherlock. But at least you know he feels the same way. Sure looked like it, at any rate. That’s got to be a comfort, even if you can’t have it.” 

Sherlock feels the corners of his mouth tighten. “I suppose,” he says, not committing to this. He yawns. “I’ve just woken up. I need to shower.” 

“Right, yeah,” Lestrade says hastily. “I just wanted to let you know about the case and say thanks and that. Er – good luck with all that. If you ever need to talk about it or whatever, you know where to find me.”

Sherlock doesn’t know exactly what to say to this, so he says, “Yes.” Then, “Thank you.” 

“Take care,” Lestrade says sincerely, and disconnects. 

Sherlock puts down the phone and turns onto his back, stretching. Afterward his muscles relax and he slumps into the comfortable embrace of his bed and lets the full weight of it all crush him. 

*** 

He showers and makes himself something to eat. He reads the newspapers and wonders if Mary will go into labour today. He skims through his email and blog comments and checks to see if stories about the Havistock murder have been published yet. The afternoon creeps by. Evening settles over the flat and spreads shadows through it like dark fingers probing into every corner. Night comes. Sherlock falls asleep on the sofa, depressed and listless. Morning dawns grey and overcast, the sky threatening snow. He showers again, eats again. Rinse and repeat. Another day with no discernible point to his existence in view. He dresses himself as though donning a uniform and attempts to start an experiment that fails to catch his interest. There hasn’t been a word from John since the taxi the other night. He hasn’t tried contacting John, either. It’s just too difficult to know what to say. It occurs to Sherlock that this most likely is the end of their friendship, after all. It couldn’t be the other thing, and because of that, they likely cannot go on with friendship alone. Not knowing. Not wanting it and always knowing that they cannot have it. Sherlock abandons the experiment and throws everything away. 

Around five, his phone suddenly rings. Sitting in his chair, staring absently at John’s, Sherlock picks it up. It’s John. His heart leaps immediately into his throat. John rarely calls; they both normally text. “Hello?” he asks, the word sounding almost hesitant. From the first second, he realises immediately that something is very wrong. He can hear John’s breathing, thick and constrained. When John doesn’t respond, he says, “John? Are you all right?” Worry gnaws into his belly. 

After a moment, John answers, audibly struggling to get the word out. “No.” 

The worry turns into a dozen wriggling snakes in his gut. “What’s going on?” Sherlock gets up and begins to pace. “Are you – what’s happened?” The baby, he thinks. Something has happened to the baby. What else could make John react this way? He stops pacing, his face creasing in tension and makes himself ask. “Is it the baby? Is she all right?” 

On the other end of the line, John’s breathing growers thicker still and Sherlock realises with horror that John is crying. (Oh, God.) “She’s fine,” he says, which would be a relief – strange as that is, Sherlock thinks in the same heart beat, and realises that he cared more about this than he’d thought – except for the bitterness in John’s tone. “Sherlock… she’s – she’s not mine.” 

Sherlock feels the shock hit him directly in the knees and he sits down hard on the coffee table. “What?!” His brain whirs and processes, attempting to make sense of this. Nothing credible presents itself to him. Mary wouldn’t have – Mary does love John, whatever else may be said of her. In her own way, and perhaps that’s a rather selfish way, but he truly believes that Mary believes that she loves John, at any rate. “Are you sure?” he asks. “How do you know? When was she born? You can’t have had a paternity test done already!” 

John’s breathing is still ragged but he is regaining control. “I don’t need to,” he says heavily. “She’s – not the same colour as me, Sherlock. All the doctors and nurses knew right away, too. And Mary won’t even speak to me. Not a word of explanation. We both cried when we saw the baby, and I just – what a way for a child to be born. I – ” 

He breaks off, breathing hard and Sherlock visualises him pinching the bridge of his nose the way he does when under duress. He waits, agonising over what to say, how to respond to this. “Where are you?” he asks, anxiety radiating through his being. “Are you still at the hospital?” 

“No. I left.” John moves the phone away from his face and blows his nose. “I’m at the flat. I’m packing.”

Sherlock’s chest grows so tight that he can hardly breathe. “Packing?” he repeats carefully. It’s too soon to hope. He cannot ask. It would read as opportunistic. 

But John tells him. “Yeah,” he says. His voice is still rough with emotion. “This is the worst possible way for this to have happened, but – I want to come home, Sherlock. I want to come home so badly – ”

He is crying again, or perhaps he never stopped. “Then come home,” Sherlock says, the words humble and small and the only thing he has to offer John at all. “I’ll be here. Come home, John.” 

*** 

John arrives forty-five minutes later with a single suitcase. Sherlock is waiting at the top of the stairs when John comes up. John stops on the landing and looks up at him for a moment, his face so bleak that he looks five years older and Sherlock’s chest aches for him. Then his head bows again and he continues up the stairs without a word. Sherlock steps back into the flat, holding the door open for him. He does not want to have this conversation in the stairwell. John moves past him and Sherlock closes the door, then turns to him. John puts the suitcase down in the middle of the room and Sherlock goes to him and silently draws him into his arms. For a while, John just stands there, his arms at his sides, hands opening and closing, and doesn’t respond. His shoulders are heaving, his breathing thick, and Sherlock has the wit to realise that he is weeping again. After a little, John puts his arms around Sherlock’s waist and holds on, and Sherlock absorbs all of his bleakness into himself and welters in it. John _did_ care about the baby. He’d secretly wished that perhaps he didn’t. Or perhaps John hadn’t realised how much he cared until the reality was taken away from him, exposed as just another of Mary’s lies. It occurs to Sherlock that John’s pride must be smarting, too, knowing that he has been duped by Mary’s duplicity, her lack of faithfulness, by some other man. He wants to know who the father was but fears saying anything that could be construed as insensitive just now. Not his forte at the best of times, and this is considerably removed from the best of times. 

After a long while, John speaks first. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t want it to happen like this. This should be a happy day for both of us. But there’s just so much to be bitter about.” 

“I know. Don’t apologise.” Sherlock presses his lips into John’s hair. “It’s all right. I mean – it’s not, but – ” he struggles for the words. “You have every right to feel – everything I imagine you must be feeling.” 

John doesn’t say anything for a minute or two, but then he sighs. “Can we sit down? I stood for so long at the hospital, waiting, and now I just feel so drained.” He pulls back a little to look at Sherlock. “I don’t want to be any further from you than this, though.” 

Sherlock studies him. John’s eyes are red and there are lines of anger framing his mouth, but he means it. “All right,” he says. “Sofa, then.” He takes John by the hand and leads him to the sofa. He sits down sideways and pulls John back to sit between his legs in a mirror of their position the last time John was here, only this time it’s his arms and legs cradling John. 

John settles himself against Sherlock and puts his hands over his, his head leaning back against Sherlock’s shoulder. “I should just feel relieved,” he says. “And I am. I honestly am. It’s just the rest of it, feeling taken in all over again. I mean, you know the only reason I ever went back to Mary was because of the baby.” 

“Was it the only reason?” Sherlock asks at last, wanting to hear it. “I thought that perhaps Mary was a part of it, too.” 

“Not particularly,” John tells him. He winds his fingers in between Sherlock’s. “I was trying to convince myself that I could make it work. But it was difficult. And knowing now that she cheated on me at least once, even before she shot you and all of that went down – I don’t feel even the slightest shred of guilt over the night we spent together now.” 

Now he can ask, Sherlock thinks. “Do you know who the father is?” 

John shakes his head against Sherlock’s shoulder. “Not for certain, no, but I have a strong guess. The baby looks south Asian, I would Indian or Pakistani. Mary has a ‘friend’. He was at the wedding.” 

Sherlock remembers from the invitations. “Alexander Sandhu.” 

“That’s the one.” John makes a frustrated sound, then says, “I am glad to be here, you know. I’m not quite myself just yet. I’m just so angry about everything.”

Sherlock shakes his head. “You don’t have to be anything other than what you are. But… is there anything I can do? I feel so inadequate – I don’t know how to comfort you.”

John is still for several minutes. Then he says, at last, “There is one thing…" 

“Anything,” Sherlock says, and means it. “What is it?” 

John’s hesitation is very slight. “Your letters,” he says. “In the notebook. Would you… read them to me?” 

Sherlock is startled. “They’re not even finished,” he says, not unwilling, but feeling it should be pointed out. “It’s just – random paragraphs here and there.” 

“Nevertheless,” John says. “I’d very much like to hear them in your voice at last. Some of it was so - not emotional, but profound, I suppose, that it was hard to believe you’d actually written it. And since they were to me, and you never sent them… I’d really like to hear you read them.” He pauses, then adds, “And it’s not that I need the reminder, but it would help me stop feeling so lost and remind me solidly why I’m here and that this is where I absolutely belong after all.” 

Sherlock pulls his fingers out of John’s and wraps his arms around John’s upper chest for a long moment. “Then let me up,” he says, his throat feeling unexpectedly tight. 

John sits up and Sherlock extricates himself and goes to the bedroom to retrieve the notebook from the drawer of his dresser where he stowed it. He brings it back, crawls in behind John again and they arrange themselves comfortably. 

“They’re hardly great works of literature,” Sherlock says. “You’ve read them; you know that. I don’t think any one of them has an actual ending. But I meant every word of every one of them.” 

“Go in order,” John says. “Start with the ones from when we still lived together.”

Sherlock gets his left arm around John’s waist and John links their fingers together with his right hand, his left resting on top of both. Sherlock touches his lips to John’s right temple. “All right,” he says, and begins to read over John’s shoulder, turning the pages of the notebook with his thumb. He reads the earliest bits, even the stupid small things – the notes about eggplants and cat breeds and various questions to ask of John, and the longer paragraphs. The letters proper don’t start until he was away, and he reads these in chronological order. The very first one still sounds like his own uncertainty and fear, not knowing how long he was to be away or what it would take to be permitted to come home again. “‘Dear John,’” he reads, beginning the first of these. “‘I apologise: receiving a letter from a man you had presumed dead must come as a slight shock. I apologise for the fact that you witnessed what you have presumed was my suicide. To be honest, you weren’t supposed to be there for it. I intended you to be at Baker Street with Mrs Hudson when it happened, but you were too clever. I should have given you more credit. I’m in Europe, on the hunt for the rest of Moriarty’s people. I can’t quite believe he is dead, but even while the man himself is, the spider web has roots all over the world. I realise even as I write this that I cannot possibly send this. I hope you will understand someday.’” Sherlock stops as the letter finishes, and turns the page. “‘Dear John, today I am in Mumbai. It’s incredibly hot and I believe I may be dehydrated. That, or I’ve eaten unwisely. Food is much spicier here than expected, even when one has learned to request mild dishes. I’m hunting a particular man here, a sniper once associated with the Indian Army. Speaking of whom – ’ That’s it for that one,” Sherlock says. “I remember that day: I saw the target and had to leave the table where I’d been sitting rather suddenly.” 

John is listening intently. “Go on,” he says. 

Sherlock turns another page. “‘Dear John, I am writing to you to explain exactly why you haven’t heard from me before now. Your life is at risk, John. I would have told you if I could, but it would have put you in danger. When I know for certain, I’ll come home. I’m writing this from the balcony of a monastery in Spain. There are sheep on the hills and you can smell the sea in the air. I think you would like it here. Perhaps one day when this is all resolved, we could come here together. I find it strange how much I miss your constant presence, to be quite honest. I don’t like to think of you mourning my death. It’s been six weeks since I left and I thought I would be back before now. I’m sorry.’” Sherlock stops, clearing his throat. He adds, more quietly, “I meant that, you know. I never thought it would take two years. Naïve of me, but true.”

John’s fingers tighten. “Where was the monastery?” he asks. 

“Catalonia,” Sherlock tells him. “Costa Brava.” John accepts this in silence, so he goes on, reading through other letters and listening to himself become more and more sentimental as the letters go. After Morocco and Libya he was in the West Bank and reads John the paragraph he wrote while there. “‘I’m writing this from the roof of a tiny hotel in Gaza. There are date palms blowing in the wind and I wish you were here. I miss you more than I ever believed I would. I always want you here with me. It’s been ten months now and I find myself wondering constantly if you ever think of me, whether you’ve moved on. What you will say when I come back. Will you be glad to see me? I expect you’ll be angry with me but I hope that when you’ve finished being angry, you’ll be glad that I’m alive after all. I wish you were here. I’ve discovered a street vendor who makes freshly-squeezed pomegranate juice, tart enough to take your breath away. I suspect you would love it. I would love seeing your face while drinking it, at any rate. I sound ridiculous but I can’t make myself take back a single word of this.’”

John makes a slight sound, and Sherlock cranes his head curiously and finds that John is smiling. Just barely, but the lines around his mouth have relaxed a little. “Go on,” John says. 

Sherlock reads letter after unfinished letter, and it’s actually very satisfying, he discovers. He’s finally having the chance to ‘send’ these unfinished scribblings to the person he intended to have read them, only not in the way it ended up happening. The right way. He goes on. After Gaza, he went to Athens, then Rome. He reads John the fountain letter, as he’s privately thought of it, his voice low. “‘I’m watching my target from a terrace in Rome. He’s on his fifth espresso of the morning and I’m rather counting on him needing the loo soon. Meanwhile, I’m somewhat distracted by a young couple sitting on the edge of the fountain. They’re embracing, and for once, instead of finding it annoying, I find myself thinking of you. I’ve never kissed anyone that way and I find myself wondering what your mouth would feel like. I can imagine it but I don’t suppose I will ever know. Some experiments need to be carried out rather than merely theorised about, though it wouldn’t be an experiment alone. Would you be as gentle as that young man is? He is holding her face in his hands, and for her the rest of the world has ceased to exist. I understand that now: that feeling. I didn’t before just now, but now I do. When someone takes up so much space in your mind, in your life, that nothing else appears to have any importance any more. I wonder if I would ever be that much to you.’” Sherlock stops, takes a deep breath, and reads on. “‘I never thought to hear myself admit how much I would like to kiss you, discover for myself what that feels like. I’ve kissed people before, though infrequently, always related to a case or a necessary disguise. I find it pleasant enough, I suppose, but what I imagine in terms of kissing you is incomparable. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know that for certain, though.’” He stops reading and lets a space of silence open between them. John is warm in his arms, against his body, and he closes his eyes for a moment and turns his face into John’s hair. 

“You do know now,” John says, his voice soft, his fingers moving over the back of Sherlock’s hand. “Is it as – different as you thought it would be then?” 

“Infinitely more so,” Sherlock responds, just above a whisper. He turns a page of case-related notes, two others containing his own, hastily-scribbled directions to various points on a map. “This is the last one that I wrote while I was away,” he says, and reads it. “‘Dear John, I am writing this from Novi Sad, Serbia. This particular situation is rather dangerous and I fear my luck may be running out. Not that it’s luck precisely, but this time I really may be in difficulty. It’s foolish because I know that you will never read these, but I wanted to say something before I set out today, just in case. I’ve never said it precisely, and perhaps I never will, but your friendship has meant more to me than anything else in my life. If I die during this particular mission, or at any other point before my eventual return to London, I hope that you discover one day why I purportedly committed suicide in front of you, why I left. I hope you will forgive me one day, and that you remember me. That’s all I want now, if this is to be the end.’”

He stops, and sees that John’s eyes are closed. “You didn’t sign that one, either,” John says. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

Sherlock shrugs. “I suppose I knew there was no point, given that you weren’t going to see it. Besides, better not to have given myself away in the event of capture.” 

“And you were captured,” John says. It isn’t a guess; Sherlock told him (briefly) about the mission during the months before Christmas when John was here taking care of the gunshot wound. 

“Yes.” Sherlock turns the page and sees the next note there, too short to be called a letter. “Do you want me to read the others?” 

“Yes.” John shifts against him. 

Sherlock hesitates, then reads: “‘John has not forgiven me. Don’t know what to do.’” He turns another page. “‘This is unbearable.’” Another page. “‘His fiancée is a liar. Wonder if John knows that she buys her bread dough pre-made. Wonder what else she’s lying about. Can hardly ask John, given the situation. Wonder if he will start speaking to me again.’”

John turns his head and stretches to kiss Sherlock on the cheek. “I did, though,” he says. Then, “Go on reading.” 

Sherlock reads reluctantly through the rest, through his bitter jabs at Mary, his speculations about John’s future boredom. The short, embarrassing note he wrote the night before the wedding: _I will never kiss him. He belongs to Mary now. Tomorrow will only make it official._ There was a gap after that, a time when he was so pre-occupied with Magnussen and with not thinking about John that he’d stopped writing notes to John. The next twelve pages contain nothing but notes about the Magnussen case, notes to himself. _Establish false pressure point: opiates? Lead away from J. Appledore: digging permits used for vaults? Inquire. Ask Janine re travel schedule, etc._ He finally reaches the letter he wrote from the MI5 holding cells in late December. “‘Dear John: I am writing this from prison. After all of my unsent letters from exotic places in Europe and Asia and Africa, this is how it is ending: from the MI5’s holding cells, my disgrace real this time. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Know that I did this for you, not her. You went back to her. I knew you would, but it still feels every inch a betrayal. She shot me, yet you went back to her. I saved her for you, though. I want you to be happy. I think they’re going to send me away. My brother is ‘negotiating’ on my behalf, or so he claims. I don’t want to leave you again but I’ve already lost you, anyway. I wish that I’d known how to tell you how I felt. I wish I knew now whether that would have made any difference, whether you would have even considered it. Your well-being has been the only thing I’ve cared about since coming back. I think that I have now done everything in my power to give you what you want. It isn’t me. I know that. You have Mary now, and soon you’ll have your child as well. I wish you every happiness. Think better of me this time, won’t you?’”

Sherlock’s throat is tight by the end of this letter. He feels John’s breath shudder on the exhale, and turns the page to read the very last thing he wrote in the notebook. “‘I love you,’” he reads, and stops. “I’m retracting the ‘goodbye’,” he says. “I’m taking it back. I feel as though I have so little to offer you in light of all that you’ve lost, that my debt to you is so great that I will never come out of the red, but what I have to offer is this: I will never leave you again. Not ever. I promise.” 

John twists around in his arms so that they’re facing, and his face is so intense that it makes Sherlock’s eyes practically ache to look at it. “You don’t owe me anything,” he says fiercely. “Not after everything you’ve done for me. Either way, let’s stop laying blame. After everything that’s happened to us both, everything that’s hurt us and kept us apart, everything we’ve lost, including each other, let’s not add any more to it. They almost succeeded, Sherlock. They almost managed to make us lose each other and all it’s done is bring us both pain. Let’s not ever be apart again.”

Sherlock nods quickly, searching John’s eyes from beneath him. “That’s all I want,” he says hoarsely. “I love you – I’ve wanted you for so long, J – ”

“I’m yours,” John interrupts him, and then his mouth is on Sherlock’s, warm and insistent. He kisses Sherlock, once, then again, then says, their mouths still touching, “I love you, too, and I’ve wanted you for just as long. So let’s put the rest of this shit behind us. Let’s just finally be together the way we always should have been.” 

“Yes,” Sherlock says, and every cell of his frame seems to echo it. He’s nodding, thumbs on John’s cheekbones. He hears himself say it again. “Yes!” 

John’s eyes are wet and Sherlock touches them as gently as he knows how, and draws John’s face down to his again. The kiss that follows is the most passionate Sherlock has ever experienced, his entire being seeming to submerge itself into John’s, into the intimacy of it, their arms locked around one another, legs twining together there on the sofa. After a little while, John reaches back and moves one of Sherlock’s hands down to his arse and Sherlock squeezes it with abandon. The kiss accelerates, losing none of its passion, and after perhaps ten minutes more, though Sherlock’s inner clock is completely overwhelmed, John gets up and pulls him to his feet.

In tacit agreement they make their way down the corridor to the bedroom, still kissing and stumbling as they move blindly. They stop in the doorway, John pushing him up against the doorframe, fingers buried in Sherlock’s hair, hips trapping Sherlock’s against his. Both of Sherlock’s hands are on John’s arse, unable to prevent himself from touching with abandon, grasping John and holding him to himself with every ounce of his might. The kiss is turning heated and sloppy, John’s saliva smeared over his cheek and jaw and throat. He can hear himself panting raggedly, blood rushing south in curls of rising desire, answered and reflected in John’s body against his. It won’t be the sitting room floor this time: they are going to bed together like a proper couple, like two adults who are permitted to do this: be together. Have one another in any and every way they want. It isn’t forbidden or impossible any more: John is here, in his very arms. The very thought it overwhelming and Sherlock hears his own breath rushing in his ears as John’s mouth caresses his pulse point, fingers already going to work at the buttons of Sherlock’s shirt. In response, Sherlock reaches into John’s jeans and pulls out the vest he’s got on under his checked shirt and starts in at the buttons. John helps him, and they fumblingly undress one another properly this time. When everything is out of the way, they stand there holding one another by the shoulders and looking at each other with possibly equal amounts of wonder. 

John is the first to move in again, bending to put his mouth on Sherlock’s clavicle, hands holding him by the ribs. His tongue laves over the planes of Sherlock’s chest and over one nipple, causing a tremor to shiver through Sherlock’s body. “Take me to your bed,” John says against his skin, every syllable and touch a manifestation everything that Sherlock feels, his hands so talented at expressing it. Sherlock hopes rather desperately that his own hands will be able to communicate even a fraction of the same in return. 

“Your bed,” he corrects, his heart thumping in his bed, and John straightens up to look at him questioningly. Sherlock clarifies. “This flat and everything in it are yours,” he states, then adds, “Including me.” 

John’s expression grows so emotional that Sherlock can feel it directly in his chest and knees and genitals at the same time. “Our bed, then,” he manages, and surges forward to lay claim to Sherlock’s mouth. 

They’ve done this once before, but never standing, never fully naked and out in the relative open this way. They hold each other, the hardness of their mutual erections pressing up against one another, thighs and stomachs flexing and releasing, biceps hard around each other’s bodies, tongues stroking together, and it’s exquisitely intense to Sherlock. Somehow they get themselves out of the doorway and into the bedroom, the door shut, and John walks him backwards over to the bed. They tumble onto it, still kissing hard and roll over and over, bodies shifting and rubbing together. It feels achingly wonderful already, hands on each other’s arses, penises thrusting against each other’s, both of them panting. Sherlock feels so much at once that he thinks he could combust. This isn’t a singular, stolen night, an act of secrecy and possible shame. This is theirs, and real. John loves him. They love each other. It hardly feels believable, and yet the reality of John’s body, his hands, his arousal, are all very much tangible – so much so that Sherlock can hardly think of anything but their bodies, his own trembling need, the urgency of John’s touch. They turn over again, John above him now and suddenly he’s thrusting in just the right way and Sherlock can hear his voice rising but cannot manage to form words, only panting gusts of vocalised breath in steady crescendo, the pleasure winding tightly around his frame. It spikes and plateaus for eight or nine straight seconds of pulsating bliss, white fire behind his eyelids, expelling itself onto his own chest. And before it has finished it’s John’s turn, his body stiffening against Sherlock’s and then releasing in hot profusion onto Sherlock’s skin. Like the first time, Sherlock thinks dimly, panting hard against John’s temple, his hands weak but nonetheless pressing John into himself, only this time it’s completely different. Everything is different. Everything is better. 

After a moment, John raises his face and looks down into Sherlock’s, and they reach for each other at the same time, their mouths warm and relaxed and no less passionate than before. Sherlock feels his breath and heart rate slow to normal rates again, and the urge to open his mouth and let out every manner of unfiltered sentimentality come flooding out rises. His hands are still touching John, stroking over his back and arse and hair as though trying to absorb John through osmosis. John’s weight on him is relaxed and heavy in a rather wonderful way, and he is making contented sounds into Sherlock’s neck now. After a bit, he shifts to Sherlock’s side, leaving one leg draped between Sherlock’s, an arm stretched out across his chest. “This almost feels unbelievable,” he says, his eyes and smile dreamy in a way that Sherlock has never seen before. 

“I know. I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Sherlock says honestly, privately glad that John was the one to start talking first. A smile is tugging at the corners of his own lips, threatening to make an utter fool of him. It can’t be helped, perhaps; he is already smiling back. He cannot resist John and doesn’t want to, anyway. He turns onto his side and reaches for John again and they kiss again, over and over again. John’s mouth feels like a harbour, calling him home, his body already familiar in Sherlock’s arms. John leaves his mouth and dips his head down, kissing Sherlock’s throat again, and Sherlock closes his eyes in bliss. John’s hands are touching him, his finger tips exploring, gentle against his skin, and Sherlock silently surrenders everything to him. 

As though hearing him do it, John looks up at him. “I want to see you at last,” he says, his voice unbearably tender. “Properly – I only got glimpses that other night, and I’ve wanted to know for so long – ” His head drops, tongue and lips closing over Sherlock’s right nipple. 

“Know what?” Sherlock asks, aware that it’s breathy. His fingers are in John’s hair, unable to stop touching him. 

“Every inch of you,” John tells his skin, moving across Sherlock’s chest. “Everything I’ve never seen before, even back in your sheet days. Every freckle on your skin. Every hair on your body.” He looks up and smiles, the smile heartbreakingly beautiful, with a very subtle gleam in his eye that makes Sherlock think that he is well and truly lost. If John ever changed his mind now, he would be utterly destroyed. Perhaps this is precisely what love is about, he thinks vaguely. Less about throwing your own life away for the other person – though that, too, if necessary – and more about giving yourself to the other, entirely, no holds barred. “All right?” John asks, wanting his confirmation, and Sherlock feels that John must have read his very thoughts. 

He takes a deep breath, nods, and attempts to let go. “Very,” he says, and John’s eyes grow impossibly more emotional still. 

“I love you,” he says again. “I’ve loved you for a very long time, Sherlock. And I’ve been aching to show you how much. You’ve had ample opportunity to prove your love to me – I want you to be able to feel what I feel for you in every pore of your skin. I want you to need a new mind palace to store your knowledge of it in.” John reaches for Sherlock’s right hand with his left and links their fingers together. “And as far as the specifics go, we can try anything you want, as far as I’m concerned. Or if there’s anything you don’t want. That’s fine, too.” 

“I want to try everything,” Sherlock says spontaneously, and John’s eyes crinkle up at the corners with amusement. “Do anything you want.” 

The amusement fades but John’s smile doesn’t, his eyes beautiful and so expressive. “Let’s explore, then,” he proposes, and returns his attentions to familiarising himself with Sherlock’s torso and belly, his tongue and lips strong and gentle at once.

He shifts lower and rubs Sherlock’s legs with his fingers, and nuzzles his nose into the fine, dark hair dusting his testicles, not minding Sherlock’s nervous laugh. The laugh quickly becomes a different sound when John’s tongue follows. Sherlock feels himself actively swelling and hardening again right before John’s watching eyes, and then John’s tongue is there, helping it along, and Sherlock moans. He hadn’t realised that his refraction period could possibly be so short, but then, he’s never had John directly available to inspire it, either. John’s mouth dips over the head of his erection, engulfing it in wet heat and Sherlock has to actively restrain his hips from jutting upward, his fingers gripping John’s now, the others clenched in a handful of the blankets they’re lying on top of. He can hear the sounds he’s making, wanton and needy, but he reminds himself that John has every right to these, too. 

John stops for a moment. “For the record,” he says, looking up at Sherlock along the length of his body, “I got myself tested last autumn. While I was staying here. And – apart from that night with you, I haven’t, you know. Not since the honeymoon.” 

Sherlock’s arousal-fogged brain disseminates this information and sorts out its relevance to their current position. “Are you saying you would like to…” This _is_ what John is getting at, isn’t it? He hasn’t got this wrong, has he? 

“Only if you want to,” John says, very sincerely. “Have you ever, before?” 

Sherlock shakes his head mutely. With anyone else this admission would feel shameful, but John surely knows this already, anyway. Mycroft told him directly that time, and besides, his own fumbling efforts the first time would have given the game away to the least observant person, and John is hardly that. 

“Do you want to?” John asks, with merciful directness. “Mind you – it doesn’t have to be this way, either. If you’d rather be the one to – ”

“No,” Sherlock says, possibly too quickly. “Maybe sometime – but this time, I think it should be the one who knows what he’s doing.”

“Would you like that, though?” John asks. “We don’t have to do that at all. I could just – ” He gives Sherlock’s erection a firm stroke. 

The confession feels almost more shameful than the other one, somehow, but Sherlock makes himself say it. “No, I want to,” he says, the words low, meant for John and John alone. “I’ve – thought about it. A lot. I want to know what it feels like, to have you inside me. To be – connected to you that way. That deeply.”

“Sherlock,” John breathes, and then he’s there, holding Sherlock’s face in both hands, lying on top of him and kissing him as though the world is about to end. His hand reaches down after a little and finds Sherlock’s erection, pulling and stroking it, his own hard against Sherlock’s hip and oozing wetness. 

Sherlock opens his legs wider. “Please,” he says half-whispered against John’s lips. 

John understands, nodding. He kisses Sherlock’s mouth again. “Have you got – ?”

“Yes – ” Sherlock reaches for the drawer of the night table, fumbles about inside until his fingers find the slim tube he keeps carefully stowed within. John holds out his hand and Sherlock gets a generous amount onto his fingers, then tosses it onto the night table. John starts to kiss him again, slowly, languorously, his hand curling around his erection again, slick with lubricant now, and Sherlock pushes himself into John’s fist, hard and aching as though they didn’t already do this once tonight. John’s fingers probe lower, precise and gentle, and when his middle finger slips into him, John kisses him again to distract him from it. The slight discomfort slides into a blur as John adds more fingers, the ache dissolving gradually into pleasure. Then the angle of John’s wrist shifts and suddenly washes of colour are blooming behind his eyes, the pleasure intense. He is gasping and John’s voice is soothing and satisfied at the same time. When his fingers disappear, Sherlock clutches at him with the desperation of a drowning man. “John – please – I need – ”

His fingers are scrabbling at John’s skin, pulling him closer, his back arching and thrusting into the air, seeking, his frame shaking with need. “I’m here,” John reassures him. “I’m right here.” His hands are arranging Sherlock’s tangle of legs, and then he is pressing himself into Sherlock. There is a moment or two of resistance, a twinge of pain like white heat, but when John asks in concern if it’s too much, Sherlock grits his jaw and shakes his head in response. 

“Keep going!” He doesn’t know what to do with his legs, but he wants John closer still, so he crosses them over John’s back and silently exults in the sensation, painful or otherwise, of having John Watson within him at last. When John is fully buried in him, his torso pressed to Sherlock’s, he stops, letting Sherlock’s body grow accustomed to the intrusion of his not-inconsiderable penis. 

“Open your eyes,” John says softly, his voice rough, and when he does, Sherlock sees the sweat gleaming on John’s forehead, feels his biceps trembling slightly, but most of all sees the look on his face. “I’m inside you,” John tells him, his voice low and rough and tender all at once. “We’re joined as completely as two people can be.” 

Sherlock’s chest seems to expand and it’s almost too much; he almost cannot breathe. He pulls John’s face down to his and they kiss and kiss, the sound of it filling the room. John begins to move not long into it and Sherlock’s body relaxes slowly and allows it, and the pain recedes, the pleasure bleeding through it and washing it away. John finds that same place again and Sherlock cries out, his legs and arms tightening around John. “Yes – oh – harder, John, please, pl – ” He cannot speak; the strength of the pleasure has him in its grip, choking his airways and scattering his vision with stars. John goes harder, faster, their bodies slamming together and it’s good, it’s so good, it’s – John reaches between them to jerk at Sherlock’s wet penis and the breath howls out of his lungs and he comes so hard that his vision blacks out for several long, suspended, breathless moments, pleasure wracking his frame violently. 

When it passes, his entire body is trembling with the aftershocks, and John is panting against him, his back damp with sweat, and Sherlock realises belatedly that John must have come somewhere in there, too, at more or less the same time. He is aware that this is supposed to be a rare phenomenon and is pleased that they managed it. His legs splay weakly open. John is still in him, his erection softening but still jerking a little, and there is wetness leaking from his body. “Sherlock,” John says, the word slurring a little, still panting, “that was _the_ most incredible thing I have ever experienced. Just so you know. You are _phenomenal._ ”

“I thought that was all you,” Sherlock says, his own words half-formed and lazy and possibly completely ignorant, but he doesn’t care any more. 

John’s laugh is only an exhalation. “Hardly,” he says. “I love you. I love this. I don’t want to move an inch away from you.”

“Then don’t,” Sherlock says. He yawns. The lamp is still on but he doesn’t care about this, either. He pulls the side of the blanket over their legs and lets sleep pull him into its depths. 

*** 

Many hours later, Sherlock opens his eyes. The bedroom is filled with light: the sun is streaming in through the curtain-less windows, its long rays stretching out across the bed and pooling in the blankets and over them both. John has shifted a little in his sleep but not much, his face relaxed and open where it’s turned sideways on Sherlock’s chest. He’s half on Sherlock and half off, but an arm is stretched as though in reflexive, permanent defence across Sherlock’s rib cage. Sherlock lets his fingers trail through the fine golden-brown hair on John’s forearm and watches the golden bits glint in the sunlight. He feels the smile creep across his face, unstoppable. 

At last. 

*


End file.
